A Helping Fist
by Fallen Pens
Summary: Things have become slow around the plaza lately, K.O. finds himself in odd situations trying to help various individuals to the best of his ability. Will the challenge overwhelm him, or will he be able to rise to the top to help everybody he can? Or will these various heroes teach him about one of the most important keys to a heroes life.
1. Rewound

_**Authors Note: Hey all, so this is my first time trying to write an OK:KO fic, so I hope it is okay. Let me know what you think of it, this is Fallen Pens, dropping out.**_

* * *

Lakewood Plaza Turbo, where many heroes came through often when stocking up for their adventures, was the home to Gar's Bodega, one of the stores that carried the most variable supplies. But today seemed to be an odd day for the small shopping center. The sky was a little cloudy but otherwise sunny, and not a lot of the usual customers were around today.

"Well, that's that," yawned an older girl in a blue crop top and black pants, her purple hair being done up behind her head looking rather messy.

"Weird… even the attack today felt slow…" the young boy beside her spoke, wearing a blue vest with a white undershirt and a red hairband wrapped around his dome, his head full of brush-like hair.

The two were Enid, a well-versed ninja at Level 3, and K.O., a young aspiring hero that had barely reached Level 1 recently. They stood outside of the bodega, surrounded by robot scraps from the most recent attack by Lord Boxman. This time it had been a limited-edition battleship Darrell.

"Today's been so slow that it kinda makes me want to help customers for once…" Enid agreed with her close friend. The register worker normally avoided customer interaction if she could. It depended on how annoying the customer themselves could be.

"But Enid, there's none of those either! Maybe today is just a slow day?" K.O. said. One of his two close friends did not know what to say to that, she didn't know if she was relieved to be able to take it easy at work or annoyed at the overwhelming boredom that was setting in. Even their boss, Mister Gar, had been acting more sluggish than usual.

"Guess so…" the purple haired ninja shrugged it off, "I'm sure it'll go by instantly after a nap."

"A slow day is better than no day," the young boy smiled, using one of the many positive mottos his mother had taught him. Enid gained a warm smile. She reached a hand down and rubbed K.O.'s head, messing his hair up slightly.

"If they start tracking cuteness as a POW card stat, K.O., you'd be Level 100," Enid joked. The young boy gained a bright smile from ear to ear from imagining that.

"You serious?!" The POW card collector asked. She laughed, he always brightened the teenager's mood. It was simply hard to be down when K.O. was around.

"Heh, maybe one day… Well, I'll let you handle the cleanup. Nothing left of Darrell this time but tiny scrap," Enid spoke before heading inside, thinking it would be no trouble for the young aspiring hero.

"I'm on it, Enid!" K.O. grinned, before bumping fists with his co-worker. She headed off back inside the Bodega to let him clean up. If he needed help, he knew to come get her or their other friend who was the stock boy for the store.

"It is kinda creepy that things are so slow… and I don't think there've been any time controlling villains or heroes around lately," K.O. mused to himself. Talking to the empty air was a bad habit that grew on him more and more with each passing day. Something about it was alleviating for his anger, he had to be in check of it too, or something terrible would happen to him and those around him.

"But there's just no one that needs help today…" K.O. added to his train of thoughts, beginning to sweep up the many bits and pieces that belonged to the destroyed Darell. Besides his mother, there was nothing he loved more than helping people the most in life, but since there was nobody to help today, he was losing steam gradually, his morale being widdled away over time too.

" **Ow!** Careful where you poke that!" A higher-toned voice chimed up. K.O. raised an eyebrow, looking around.

"Darell? Did Boxman send another one of you to fight!?" the young boy got on his guard, dropping the broom and dustpan. Both hit the ground with loud clanking noises.

" ** _Yeow!_** I said watch it!" K.O. looked behind himself. On the ground laid the red one-eyed robot's head, dented, battered and bruised, or at least the brain in the green dome atop his head looked bruised.

" _Oh…_ Uh, sorry," the young hero apologized, lowering his guard fast when realizing it was just the same enemy that they had fought moments ago. K.O. picked up Darrell's head before resting it on top of the rest of his remaining scrap from his injured robo-body in the trash can.

"If it makes you feel better, your new limited-edition form was neat! _…Until, y'know…_ you blew yourself up," K.O. felt his voice trail off toward the end. The battleship Darrel did not get to do much in the fight. He and Enid had jammed Boxman's minion's cannons with full trash bags that they had been trying to throw out when the fight began, causing his self-destruction.

"Thanks for not using my head as a kick the can toy again…" Darell only could reply. Whenever a battle ended between the heroes and villains, things tended to become oddly casual afterwards.

" _Sooooo…_ Do you want me to send you back to Boxman or the dumpster?" K.O. coughed to break the silence. It was standard policy to send the robots' broken parts back to their rightful owner, though it was more so done to add insult to injury by reminding their enemies that they had lost.

"Dumpster please… Dad's gonna throw my head in a compactor again anyway," Darell sighed, figuring he could at least enjoy the day and night until the garbage truck came tomorrow. The robot boy had a seemingly endless supply of bodies he could always be booted into after his last one was destroyed. The same went for the rest of Lord Boxman's creations that he dubbed as children.

* * *

K.O. spent the next ten minutes cleaning up the outside of the bodega of all the robot parts. He was wheeling the last of them in a metal bin to the back of the store, to pour them into the dumpster.

" _Aaaaand_ that's everything!" K.O. smiled, tossing the garbage can to the side. The dumpster was empty aside from the robot parts filling it. Darell's head rested in the middle, looking lost in his own mind

"Say, Darell… since you're going to be there a while, can I ask you something?" K.O. requested.

" _Well…_ You were nice enough to let me spend today in the dumpster, so I guess I can answer," Darell replied. Boxman's son tended to fall into a slight sadness when imagining his creator's disappointment or anger with him.

"Has today felt slow to you? It feels like the world turned off and we're the only part of it still on," K.O. did his best to explain his question. The robot took a moment to process it.

"Actually, it's been so slow that dad's even fixed some of our weak points," Darell nodded to the best of his disembodied head's ability. Lord Boxman had told his robot children it would take months to even get the blue prints done for the upgrades, but today had been just that slow and uneventful that he focused his time on them, so much so that they had been done in nearly a day.

"Really? Like what?" K.O. innocently asked. The robot gave an annoyed glare.

"Nice try Lakewood loser, but I'm not _ **THAT**_ dumb to expose my upgrades," Darell retorted. The brush haired boy did not mean for his question to come off that way, but he decided to let the topic go. He suddenly heard a faint noise catch his ears attention.

"Hey, do you hear that?" K.O. asked, swearing he was hearing a fast whoosh.

"Yeah… it's the kind of sound someone makes when they're falling from orbit," Darell knew that noise all too well from the hundred or so times he had been knocked sky high. The young boy looked up at where he thought the noise was coming from.

"It's something shiny. Maybe a bird dropped a spoon or something?" K.O. commented. He watched as the shimmering object fell, but he had no reaction time when it soon landed square on his head with a loud clunk.

" **Ow!** What the-?!" K.O. held his head in pain, barely opening one eye to see it. A strange shaped hourglass had bounded off his head and landed in some of the trash that cushioned its fall. He reached into the dumpster and picked it up, looking very confused.

"An hourglass…?" he muttered. The hourglass looked normal, except the wooden pieces holding it together had one little top hat in the center of each one with other various looking pieces. The detail made it look oddly beautiful. The shimmering silver sand inside was almost mesmerizing.

"Never seen one of those before," Darell spoke. Hourglasses never fell from the sky, according to his data.

"Ah, no! **It's cracked!** I was thinking mom would've liked it too…" K.O. sadly exclaimed. Upon one short look over, the hourglass had cracked when colliding with his head. It was a miracle that it was not broken.

"Maybe it'll still hold the sand?" the aspiring hero thought that the crack would be something easily ignorable as long as the hourglass worked like it was supposed to. K.O. turned the ancient clock upside down, watching the silver sand inside begin to quickly pour down faster than it should. Before he knew it however, the hourglass began glowing brightly, almost blinding them both.

"Wh-what's happening?!" Darell fearfully shouted, wishing he had his legs to run with right now, as well as immensely regretting his choice of dumpsters to be thrown into. The two were completely blinded in a matter of moments.

* * *

When that blinding light faded away and allowed his vision to return, K.O. found himself standing outside of the front of Gar's bodega, holding the hourglass in his hand.

" **Wha…** _wuh…_ huh? What happened?!" K.O. looked around in confused fear.

"That's what I was about to ask you!" he looked over. Enid stood beside him again. They were carrying one overfilled trash bag each. The very thing they had been doing earlier. They were in the exact same positions, except the hourglass was still snug in the young aspiring hero's free hand.

" _I-I_ don't know! I got hit in the head by this weird shiny old hourglass, and when I turned it upside down, I went blind!" K.O. gave his best recollection from his short-panicked state. They were back in the exact place doing the exact same task from half an hour ago.

" _A shiny old hourglass…?_ " Enid raised an eyebrow. They then heard a loud crash. The two looked over to the parking lot in front of them. A giant box had crashed there, cracking a lot of the ground. The sides of the box began to fall apart, revealing the individual inside of it.

"Nyeheheh! Looks like we're gonna have a rematch, Lakewood Losers!" Darell cackled with his sharp teeth quite prominent. Cannons were protruding on his shoulders, and his arm blasters were fully charged, ready to blast anything it could. He was in an odd sailor outfit too with a ship like design to his body, he was three times their size.

"Dar-darell! _**Wait!**_ We already did this!" K.O. shook his head, protesting the second fight.

"Boxman really makes him fast," Enid grumbled, looking at the full trash bags beside them. She grinned, but did not move a muscle, having been stopped when the trash bags were hit by a large blue laser blast, evaporating them into nothing and leaving only a scorch mark in their place.

"Nah, ah, ah! I'm not falling for that twice! I'm going to beat you both, tear apart the bodega, and then get that hourglass for myself, so I can do it over and over again! _**FOREVER!**_ " Darell began maniacally laughing, as if his very creator had possessed him.

"Over and over again?" the teenage ninja was confused and irritated. The one-eyed robot seemingly knew their moves before they could even pull them off.

" _I-I_ don't think that's a **_NEW_** Darell, Enid! I think that's the same one…!" K.O. meekly insisted, not wanting her to get mad with him. All this did was add onto the confusion.

"What can I say? It's the chance to show you Lakewood Losers Limited Edition Battleship Darell's abilities!" Darell declared in a third person perspective, his one eye turning into a targeting reticle before focusing on the two employees of Gar's bodega.

"I can't believe this junk. K.O., keep that hourglass safe. If he wants it, that means we can't let him have it," Enid ordered her close friend to be defensive, the brush haired boy gave a determined nod. As if to signal the start of their power battle, the one-eyed robot fired several cannon shots that rung out loudly across the area,

The teenage ninja huffed, pushing her little friend gently to the left a little. One of the cannonballs crashed between them, making them bounce off their feet, Enid immediately darted off as fast as her legs could carry her.

"Come on, stand still! It's already hard enough to control this!" Darell exclaimed, watching each cannonball crash into a part of the parking lot and miss his target. Enid was able to keep easily ahead of his attacks. The parking lot was getting broken more and more by each explosive cannonball.

Darell aimed his arm cannon and fired a laser. His opponent stopped on her heels as it blasted right past her face.

" _Crud…_ " Enid grit her teeth, hearing the next volley of cannonballs get fired. She came up with an idea, smirking. The first cannonball landed on top of her, but right before it could collide she vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a wooden log that got turned into toothpicks after the hit.

" **What the?** Where'd she go?!" the one-eyed robot growled.

" _Whooooaaa…_ " K.O.'s eyes shimmered with excitement. Darell followed where the young boy's eyes were focused on. Enid had begun jumping up on each cannonball with great precision, climbing up each one like they were mere springs.

"Oh, real funny, but you're just a flying duck now!" Darell fired another laser. Enid jumped up to the next cannonball, watching the laser evaporate some of the shots from the last volley.

"Do you ever cram it, you goon?" the Bodega worker cracked her knuckles, staying atop the gradually falling cannon shot, the robotic enemy had been firing them so high that it was taking even longer for them to touch the ground now.

"I will gladly after you get a couple of jawbreakers!" the one-eyed robot fired another volley of twelve cannonballs. Enid let her left boot catch on fire, before jumping up off the cannonball she had been riding, right in the path of the next volley.

"Here you go!" Enid delivered a flaming kick against one of the cannonballs, sending it right back toward the sender like a charged soccer ball.

" _ **Gaaaaah!**_ " the cannonball went through his arm, breaking the laser blaster to pieces. Wires and bolts bled out of the wound and dangled loosely.

"You rock, Enid!" K.O. cheered. By the time Darell got his ground back, another two cannonballs were hit right back at him, breaking some of his cannons to nothing but metal chunks.

"I'm starting to regret this do-over…" he coughed. The Limited-Edition Battleship Darell wished he had went against the idea of his dad launching him to attack the bodega to re-plan everything. Another cannonball bounced off his head, cracking his glass dome that contained his brain. Enid landed back on the ground.

"So, you gonna give up?" Enid offered the robot to raise the white flag, letting the flames on her boot vanish. to her there was something so satisfying about beating an opponent so hard that they were forced to surrender.

"No way, Lakewood Losers! I still have one more trick, and it's literally up my sleeve," Darell grinned, his still active arm opening with steam emitting from the sides. A large cannon appeared from the wrist, replacing his hand. He took aim for Gar's bodega.

"Don't think you can knock _**THIS**_ one back! Nyeheheheheh!" the red robot was more than happy to take a nobody wins route. If he could not get that hourglass, neither would his families enemies.

"And we were getting along so well a minute ago… _err…_ a minute ahead? The past minute ahead? The past minute ago that was a minute ahead?" K.O.'s disappointment turned to confusion, trying to figure out how to describe the time travel now for a route that no longer existent.

" _Well…_ I'm out of ideas," Enid did not exactly know how to counter a cannonball that was as big as the hero supply store they worked in.

"Maybe we could use the hourglass?" K.O. suggested that they could restart the fight again and just change how things went. His close friend did not seem to like this idea.

"Sorry, K.O. but I'd rather let myself get blown up then mess with time travel. That's for another hero's arsenal," Enid rubbed his head, appreciative of what he was willing to do to try and help. Darell's cannon began to violently smoke. Indicating that it was going to fire in a few moments.

"Wait! I have an idea!" the young boy hopped up before he clung and held onto her left arm, whispering his plan to the ninja's ear.

"There's no way that it's that simple, K.O., _but…_ Not like doing nothing'll get us anywhere," Enid sighed, resting him back down. She was ready to get him out of there if they had to. She dug around in her pocket before pulling out a chain that had two heavy looking balls on the ends. Both of the spheres looked incredibly detailed and sturdy, but they had clearly seen their own fair use in battle.

"I'm rusty with meteor hammers, so, wish me luck," Enid began spinning the meteor hammer in her hand trying to get its speed to build up to give it more force.

"Nyhahaha! You think some tiny balls like those'll do anything to me? I already took plenty of balls to the face during this fight alone!" Darell laughed. However, during his distraction, she spun around in a full circle and threw the meteor hammer toward his large cannon with all her strength. The odd weapon fell inside his large cannon, vanishing into the barrel. All they heard were several loud clangs. But sadly, no results.

" **No!** " K.O. gasped. He had hoped that it would work. That had been his only plan immediately in mind. He could already feel Mr. Gar's disappointment in them.

" _Well…_ Crud," Enid sighed, not too surprised by that failing. Suddenly, their attention was averted to a sounding rumble.

"Eh?" Darell raised an eyebrow, confused. Before they knew it, his arm cannon exploded, blasting the robotic henchman into a million shrapnel pieces. K.O. grabbed one of the umbrellas from the inside of the store entrance and opened it. Enid crouched down to his short height, letting him hold the umbrella over them both.

" _Wow…_ I can't believe that worked…" Enid confessed as she watched some of the scorched fragments of metal bounce off the umbrella, landing around them.

"I was thinking it'd either jam the cannon or cause the cannonball to blow up. Boxman had to cut corners somewhere on the upgrades, right?" K.O. gave a bright smile, proud his plan worked.

"Well this time, I'll help clean up… once the junk stops raining," the purple haired girl declared, not wanting to make the young boy handle the same mess that he cleaned up once earlier. She was also too lazy to go tricking Rad into doing it.

"What should we do with the hourglass?" K.O. requested, not sure about leaving it alone or unattended. His co-worker shrugged.

"Guess we'll have to talk to Mr. Gar about that," Enid replied, thinking their boss was the only one possibly with any real solution. If some hero lost it, they could come right to them to find it. If a villain dropped it on the other hand, then they would smash it beyond repair. The young boy nodded, eagerly agreeing with this plan.

"…Hey Enid?"

"Yeah, K.O.?"

"You're not mad at me for rewinding time… are you?"

"Nah, I know you didn't mean to. But please don't go doing it again. I'd rather not deal with the same customers from this morning again."

K.O. gained a bright smile at her reassurance. "Thanks, Enid."

"Don't sweat it. Now come on. Let's get to cleaning."

 _ **"You can count on me!"**_


	2. A Tip Of The Hat

Things inside the bodega were going as normal, despite the slowness today and lack of customers. K.O. and Enid had gone straight to their boss after cleaning up the mess outside to tell him about the time rewinding device.

"Time travel? **_Again?_** …Guess that explains why the hole in the roof is back," Mr. Gar, the muscular and renowned Level 11 hero himself stood, with no shirt on and a tie around his neck, his sunglasses hiding his eyes near-perfectly.

"I think that's just where one of the dozen cannonballs flew during the fight," K.O. said with his right hand slightly raised, still holding the hourglass under his left arm. He looked at the decent sized hole in the ceiling. This amount of damage dealt to the bodega was common, but it would have been a lot worse if they had not stopped the attack when they did.

"I'm sure it only rewound us like an hour," Enid added, standing beside her short coworker.

" _ **Hmph!**_ Darn buckets of bolts… next time they attack, I'll deal with'em," Mr. Gar cracked his neck with one small move of his head. He personally wanted to give Darell a few dozen new dents.

"Mr. Gar, what should we do with it?" K.O. refocused the conversation back on the topic at hand. Their boss held his hand out. K.O. turned the cracked hourglass over to him.

"I'll put it in that indestructible display case. Enid can ask any customers about it when helping them check out," Mr. Gar walked over to the counter where the register resided. Enid huffed, feeling irritated that she had to be more actively attentive at this point.

"We have one of those?" K.O. had no recollection of a display case, but one that was indestructible sounded great. He watched in awe as their boss lifted the whole front count with one leg before reaching in and pulling out the display case from beneath it. He let the counter fall back in place, it shook the floor beneath them slightly.

"It looks as flimsy as our windows," the Level 3 ninja commented. Mr. Gar put the display case on the counter opposite to the cash register, before opening it and putting the enigmatic hourglass inside.

"Alright, so it can only take three hits from me. It might not be indestructible, but it's more than tough enough to handle most of what's thrown at it," Mr. Gar, to prove so, slammed his closed fist down on top of the case itself, shaking the whole hero supply store. It took a few moments for everything to settle back down, the case was unharmed.

" _ **Whoooooa…**_ " K.O. was in awe, like it was an amusement park ride that he wanted to go on again. They all then heard a loud crash and a few small explosions shortly after.

" _Friggin…_ **blorp!** Come on! I just finished getting those burst gauntlets restocked!" they saw the Level 2 stock boy alien emerge from one of the aisles, now having a dozen bruises and scrapes on his beefy body.

"Sorry Rad, was just showing them that everything was safe… Aside from the shelf that just blew up," Mr. Gar apologized. Radicles let out a frustrated sigh, watching their boss put the display case with the hourglass in it high up on top of the shelf that they kept the various types of gum within, right beside the register.

"Sorry for rewinding time, Mr. Gar," K.O. felt the need to apologize. Whether it was intentional felt irrelevant to him.

"Oh, you did that? I didn't think you were a time rewinder or whatever…" Rad scratched his head, not sure if he should be impressed or not by his close friend. The alien teen leaned toward annoyed, due to a lot of work being undone by that simple rewind.

"We all make mistakes with time travel once or twice in our lives. Just be thankful this was a short one," Mr. Gar brushed it aside, trying to be positive about things. The bodega creator was more than happy lately with the slowness today. For him, it meant less attacks, as well as less damage to his employees and the plaza.

"Thank you, sir!" K.O. proudly saluted. Mr. Gar rubbed the back of his head, having never gotten used to being praised so often on a regular basis despite his hero level.

"Well, I'm on break again," Enid decided to take this time rewind's benefits to redo her short break, leaving to go to the back room for employees only.

"I'll be in my office. K.O., Rad, make sure to keep a close eye on that hourglass, and especially keep an eye out for customers that look like time travelers," the Level 11 hero ordered, beginning to leave to go to his office.

"Wait, how do you spot a time traveler?" the young aspiring hero called, but Mr. Gar had already gone without an answer.

"Trust me kid. You'd know. Time travelers always have three things that give them away. Either they travel in phone booths and weird cars, or are being chased by crazy robots, or they have crazy hair," Rad explained to his little friend. The kid's eyes shimmered from his mind registering all the information as if it was true fact.

"You know so much, Rad…" K.O. praised his close friend, watching the extraterrestrial flex his muscles with a chuckle, looking more than pleased to have his ego polished by someone other than himself.

"Thanks kid. When you're someone like me, you gotta know everything ya can," Rad continued, more than willing to milk this praise for every drop its worth.

" _ **Really?!**_ Teach me the most important stuff, right now! Please!" K.O. was on top of one of his muscular friend's biceps, surprising him. There were moments where his short friend could move so fast when excited that it seemed like he teleported.

"Hahah! K.O., I can't share all my vast knowledge with everybody… I can share some tips on one of the most important things in the world though, if you _reaaaally_ want," Rad offered. K.O. nodded his head rapidly, practically brushing his friends face with his hair.

" _Pllllleeaaaaase_ , Rad! What is one of the most important things?! Tell me everything about it!" the aspiring hero begged. His friend pulled the small coworker off his chest and put him back down.

"Well, since you asked so nicely… one of the most important things in life that you'll need to know about, are ladies and how to get'em," Rad started. He could read the confusion on K.O.'s face, but before the stock boy could continue, he noticed Enid peeking her head out of the break room door, glaring at him, as if to send him a message to not damage their best friend's innocence. The young hero was not going to have it forever, but that did not mean they had to go destroying it before he was even thirteen years old.

"What do you mean? Like how to fight one?" K.O. quirked, noticing a nervous sweat break out across his muscular friend's forehead.

" _Uh… n-no,_ I mean, like, how to show one you like them as more than just a friend, y'know? Like, to make allies." Rad coughed, hoping to get away with simply leaving it at that, but he had gone too far to back out now. His friend wanted any knowledge that could help him on the path to the hero life.

"Really? Tell me! It might help me help people!" K.O. continued his pleading, not wanting to be left with only part of what he believed to be important hero information. Rad could feel Enid's threatening glare intensifying. One wrong syllable past his lips would earn him a few kunai chucked his way. Suddenly he had an idea cross his mind.

"Well, to show someone you care about them as more than… _just a friend…_ sometimes the simplest way to start is by holding their hand tight, to show them the strength your heart has for them. You can tell a lot about a person from simply shaking their hand, y'know." Rad said in a warm reassuring tone, as if he was trying to impersonate Mr. Gar to give a vital lesson for both heroes and for life in general.

"It's really that simple…?" K.O. asked, it sounded amazing with the way he described it, like it was a once in a life time experience.

"Yeah, but you gotta figure out the rest on your own, and you will in time, little dude," Rad patted his young friend's head.

" _Aw man…_ not another learn on my own lessons," K.O. groaned. Nearly every other thing he was told was that type of lesson, but his mother had taught him a million times that there were no shortcuts on the road to becoming a hero either. He had to learn that the hard way unfortunately.

"Sorry man. Well, I'm gonna go on break now while I can," Rad said.

"Alright. I'll go clean the aisle that blew up. Thanks for the lessons, Rad!" K.O. left on that note to get his cleaning supplies, letting his friend take his break. Forgetting entirely that he had used his break this morning.

" _Whew…_ I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack," Rad tried to take in some deep breaths to calm down. Their ninja coworker was simply that terrifying when angry.

"Nice recovery there."

" _ **Ah!**_ " the alien stock boy jumped in surprise. Enid stood behind him, holding a half-eaten sandwich with a smirk on her face. She enjoyed watching his awkward situation.

"That's what happens when you brag too much," the purple haired girl laughed, taking another bite of her food.

"Hey, I taught him something useful! You really gotta knock it off with the big sister or mommy act, or at least relax more," Rad could not believe he was actually telling her of all people to relax more. She was one of the most relaxed people in all of Lakewood Plaza, maybe even the world. Even if Enid did nothing to him, the teenage alien did not want an angry visit from the young boys mother, that would end even worse for him.

"You taught him the least explicit thing you had in mind… and I do _**NOT**_ do that," Enid glared. She wanted to take care of K.O., but in the sense of showing him appreciation for his big heart and heroic efforts to help others. In a sense, it was to help repay him for helping her icy heart thaw out some more for others. Before they met, the ninja was practically ignoring a lot of real long term social activities, aside from Rad. K.O. helped change her, even if it was in the smallest way.

"If you say so… I'm gonna go craft a medkit," Rad brushed Enid aside, not in the mood to fight right now. He would let the ninja have this win.

Enid looked happy with today so far. She got to beat up Darell twice in regard, and had beat Rad in one of the first less heated fights they had in a long time. Despite being friends, they did bash heads quite often.

 _"Yet somehow, I still feel like today's nowhere near done… I swear, today just keeps slowing down…"_ the front counter worker looked up at the hourglass. Having it around made her feel uncomfortable. She waved a hand at it before going to get back to her work station.

* * *

Darell stretched, stepping off the assembly line, back in his normal form and feeling a little disheartened by another limited-edition body being destroyed.

"Wow, you look more bummed out than usual after a fight," his orange robot sister stood, her red eyes affixed to him. She could shapeshift to many forms, but preferred to unleash her razor sharp buzzsaws whenever she felt like it.

"Shannon, I didn't lose that fight once. I lost it twice! How can I screw up when I knew what they were going to do?!" Darell fell onto the floor face first. Shannon raised an eyebrow.

" _I dunno…_ I only saw you blow up once over there," she replied, watching their other brother come over and hoist the one eyed red robot back onto his feet.

"At least you almost did something," the sports loving machine Raymond commented. His brother did not know if that was a compliment or not.

"Where's dad?" Darell asked, surprised that he was not rebooted into five new bodies already.

"He got so angry that he passed out in his office when our upgrades got undone," Shannon pointed a thumb to their father's closed doorway. All the hard work that Lord Boxman had put into upgrading his robot children being lost had made him lose his mind briefly.

"It's cause of that stupid hourglass! It fell from the sky and that little Lakewood loser rewound time with it to beat me!" Darell exclaimed. To most it probably seemed like nothing other than a lapse in memory, but to anyone nearby the area knew that things were reset.

"He rewound time after you lost… so you could fight and lose?" Shannon didn't understand the logic. It sounded like a confusing riddle. She knew none of the Lakewood plaza turbo individuals would redo battles like that, unless they were sadistic to the point of enjoying watching their enemies groveling in endless pain.

"…Okay, maybe he rewound time by accident, but still," Darell lost a lot of his steam now that his point was destroyed.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go steal it! We'd gain so much of an advantage if we had that in our arsenal. Maybe father could even upgrade one of us to wield it," Raymond insisted they go on the offense right there and now, they would worry about fighting over who got to use it later.

"As much as I'd love to go chop those idiots to pieces, it'd be pointless," Shannon sighed, going to a nearby cabinet to get herself a can of oil to drink.

"She's right. They have it, and anything we do would just be undone. We should be thankful they aren't trying to make sure none of us were ever created right now," Darell exclaimed in agreement. The brain-podded robot figured the best option was that nobody had control over it, especially after recalling that it was damaged.

"Hmph! What pathetic excuses for villains you two are! Don't you see this is perfect? If they refuse to use it, that means we just simply need to remain persistent to reach the end zone for our goal!" Raymond gave a small speech to try and motivate two of his siblings. They looked to him before looking back and forth between each other.

"He does have a point… those Lakewood losers would be too afraid to try and do anything with it!" Darell grinned, more than eager for a third round against those heroes. Their morals would stop the bodega workers from using that time controlling hourglass against them.

" _Fine…_ maybe this'll make dad happy when he wakes up," Shannon begrudgingly agreed. The spoiled orange robot walked off to get the launch box ready, to take them over for another three-on-three battle, her brothers coming along to help with preparations.

* * *

" _Aaaand_ there we go!" K.O. smiled, announcing that he had finished cleaning the store. It now shimmered in pure cleanliness. Rad was off trying to get more of the blast gauntlets to restock the replaced shelf. Enid was asleep behind the counter with her feet kicked up on it beside the register. K.O. soon heard the front doors opening.

"A customer!" K.O. dropped his mop and darted off across the slippery floor to see if he could help them.

"Whoa, whoa, _**whooooa!**_ " he wound up slipping and sliding across the floor face first until he slowed down and bumped his head lightly against the counter. He moaned in pain. He felt someone step on him to get over him. K.O. looked up to see a girl that looked a little older than him but was barely any taller. Her light auburn hair was done back into a ponytail but with two parts of it long and dangling in front of her ears.

"Sorry about that, can I help you?" K.O. got up. The girl wore a big purple top hat with a yellow band around it, a purple long sleeved jacket and a yellow cape with an umbrella hanging on her back.

"…Hello?" the Level 1 hero received little answer. The young girl did give him a glance with those light blue eyes of hers. Enid had awoken from K.O.'s voice and partial crashing.

"Oh, welcome to Gar's Bodega… do you need help reaching one of the gums?" Enid offered, seeing the hat wearing kid standing in front of the shelf the time artifact was on top of. K.O. meanwhile was quickly sorting through his POW cards, trying to find out if he had her card in his collection.

"Whoa, hey there, Hat Kid, calm down," the purple haired ninja spoke upon seeing the little girl jumping up and trying to reach the hourglass. Hat Kid was the only name that came to mind when trying to quickly address the presumed customer.

"That thing's… well, not so much dangerous as much as annoying? Either way You don't want to mess with it," K.O. tried to warn her. It was not so much a threat to them as much as it was a grand inconvenience. Hat Kid pointed a finger to the cracked hourglass before pointing to herself.

"What? You're telling us that it belongs to you?" the Level 3 hero took a shot in the dark. It was hard to work with mute people. The register worker looked over to her close friend, hoping he had turned up a POW card to prove whether it belonged to the cape wearing girl.

"Sorry. Either she doesn't have one or I just haven't gotten it yet," K.O. wished Dendy was here. Her collection was twenty times bigger than his.

" _Great…_ one of the only customers we've gotten today and they're a silent protagonist," Enid lay her head on the counter. She hit a button nearby that was supposed to alert Mr. Gar that they needed him.

"Do you have anything to show us that it's yours? Like a picture?" K.O. asked. The top hat wearing girl nodded, unzipping her coat and reaching inside. After a moment of rummaging around, she pulled out another hourglass that looked exactly like the one in the display case, only it was not damaged.

"That might be better than a picture," Enid said, but sadly that did little to help. As far as they knew the little girl could have just stumbled across it. She however couldn't care to think about why anyone would need more than one-time travel device.

A purple laser suddenly flew their direction and hit the hourglass the Hat Kid held, wrapping around it and yanking it out of her hands. It levitated into the air.

"Don't worry guys! I got it!" Rad called out. He emerged and pulled the hourglass to him with his telekinetic powers, catching it in his other hand.

" **Rad!** What are you doing?!" K.O. asked.

"What? I'm stopping the thief," the alien answered, confusedly. Having assumed that the child had stolen the object while his co-workers were busy.

" _Hoo, boy…_ " Enid held her head. Hat Kid pulled the umbrella off her back, beginning to charge for the stock boy with a smirk.

"Tch! Like that twigs gonna hurt me, but if me saying sorry won't do it, then go ahead," Rad was willing to let her hit him a little if it made her feel better. The closed umbrella collided with his chest. On impact he briefly flashed red, before getting sent flying into one of the shelves, knocking it over. The many items on it clattering to the ground.

" _ **YEOW!**_ That hurt! What was that?!" Rad held his chest in pain. It felt like a wound from a sledgehammer.

" _Ohhh,_ she's one of those types of heroes," the ninja smirked, enjoying watching the battle already.

"What kind of hero do you mean, Enid?" K.O. pulled himself up onto the counter for a better view.

"One of those who can only hurt someone when they turn a certain color to do major damage. I'm gonna go on a hunch and say the color she looks to hit is blue," the Level 3 ninja explained. Rad's turquoise skin tone was why he took the most damage from that little kid, he basically was constantly vulnerable, no matter how high his defense was.

"Rad! Do you need help?" K.O. shouted to his friend, wondering if he should try and stop this mess that the stock boy had caused.

"No no, I got this! She just got a lucky hit!" Rad replied, pointing his finger toward Hat Kid. "Sorry kid, but you shouldn't start power battles you can't win."

The alien then fired a laser blast. Hat Kid hastily opened her umbrella before crouching down behind it. The laser hit the umbrella before bouncing off and going through the ceiling, creating another unwarranted skylight within it. He then fired another beam that grabbed the umbrella and removed it from her grasp with a yank.

" **Hah!** There! I win! Now can you knock it off? I'm sorry for what I did, I thought you were a thief," Rad apologized once more. Hat Kid ran off toward him before jumping up and diving for him. She bounced off the alien's head, stunning him long enough to grab her umbrella and the time piece back. Before Rad could react, he was assailed by her parasol, one swing at a time. Even after the first one knocked him to the ground.

" _Gah!_ Ow! **Blorp!** Stop! _**Please!** _Guys, a little help please?! **Yowch!** " Rad called to his friends. Enid was recording this on her cellphone, doing her best to resist laughing. K.O. had been told a dozen times to not get involved with power battles that he had nothing to do with, unless his friend was in real danger he would not jump in right away.

"Alright you two, that's enough," Mr. Gar's voice spoke as he stood behind Hat Kid. She seemed to grow a sheepish toothy smile when she saw the giant man before her. The Bodega owner's presence had been enough to end the fight. He fixed his sunglasses.

"Sorry for my employee. He's not too good with forethought."

" _He-hey!_ I think plenty!" Rad coughed in reply, still lying in the floor, covered in even more bruises and scratches.

"So, I take it you're here for that hourglass?" Mr. Gar ignored his injured employee, returning to the front counter with the now calmed down girl. Hat Kid nodded, holding up the intact one for proof that they were hers.

"She kinda tried to walk in and take it," Enid commented, watching Mr. Gar get the cracked hourglass out from the display case.

" _Sorry…_ I cracked your hourglass when it landed on my head," K.O. apologized, acting as if the falling from thousands of feet high in the sky was not involved with reason behind the hourglass' damage. Before their boss could turn it over, they heard a loud crash outside.

"Oh, you cannot be serious!" Enid facepalmed. They were being attacked again already. The five of them stepped outside, where they could see another box in the parking lot. It began to fall apart, revealing the three children of Lord Boxman.

"Hello again, Lakewood losers!" Darell laughed.

"I figured you'd at least wait a day before coming for another beating," Enid retorted with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh my, what's this? You brought the hourglass for us to get too! How thoughtful," Raymond spoke smugly at Mr. Gar, seeing him holding the cracked hourglass. Hat Kid stuffed her hourglass back into her coat to safely hide it before they could also spot it.

"It isn't yours! _**Get lost!**_ " K.O. stomped forward, not going to stand idle while they tried to steal from another hero.

"Afraid it isn't gonna be that simple," Shannon giggled. She retracted her left hand into her arm, and let out a violently swirling buzzsaw in its place.

"Man, I cannot get a break today…" Rad groaned, more than ready to fight despite his injuries.

"I owe you buckets of bolts some payback for damaging my store too," Mr. Gar informed them. There was no way he could let them get away that easily. Hat Kid looked willing to opt into this fight as well to protect her important possession.

"Hey kids!" A familiar voice sounded, basically pausing the battle. "Hope I'm not interrupting!"

"Mommy!" K.O. smiled. His mother Carol, a Level 11 hero, stepped over, having paused the fight before it could start.

"Hey, peanut. Sorry for bugging ya. I was coming by to pick up something for my dojo," the blonde woman apologized, giving her son a tight hug.

"Oh, hey there, Gar. I didn't see ya there," Carol greeted her old friend, causing his entire body to become bright red as he looked nervously away.

" **Uh,** he-hey there… _Carol,_ " Mr. Gar had to force the words out of his mouth. He always froze up and became too sheepish around Carol despite their history together. They suddenly heard glass shattering.

"Uhh… Boss?" Enid coughed, trying to get his attention.

"We should've left that inside," Rad groaned.

" _Did you…_ really just do what I think you did?" Raymond stared.

"Dad's gonna kill us when he finds out we wasted a box…!" Darell gulped.

"I knew this was a waste of time! You idiots wouldn't listen!" Shannon shouted at them, and just like that the three robot siblings had begun fighting.

"Oh… I… dang it," Mr. Gar looked down at his hand where silver sand was pouring from between his fingers. In his embarrassment he tended to lose control of his strength. The cracked hourglass was nothing but shards now. Hat Kid stared with a disheartened look.

"Aw, no!" K.O. hopped out of his mother's arms, looking at the tiny glass shards scattered on the ground.

"He-hey we can fix it! I'm sure we can, we just need a vacuum and a lot of glue!" the Level 1 hero insisted. Hat Kid shook her head and sighed.

"Well, while they're here, let's… where'd they go?" Enid looked back at the now empty box. The boxmore goons had fled in the distraction to presumably fight back at home.

"Did I come at a bad time?" Carol asked, seeming very confused.

"N-no, just trying to help a customer! Enid, please go help her," Mr. Gar ordered. Enid nodded and went into the bodega with Carol to retrieve the item.

"How many technos will it cost to replace that?" Rad questioned the little girl, feeling bad that they had broken the important time controlling object. They watched Hat Kid shake her head, looking defeated. She began to walk away from the bodega. K.O. couldn't let someone leave like that. He felt like he owed her his help.

"Wait! What if I help you get another?" he offered, running up and stopping her from leaving. Hat Kid tilted her head, pondering it.

"Are you sure we can't just pay you to get another?" Mr. Gar asked. They had plenty of technos to spare, but that had been an irreplaceable item.

"If it can't be replaced, it must be a collectible! I'm sure there's loads around town if we look hard enough," K.O. tried to continue his offer. If one of those fell from the sky, it meant there might be another hundred laying in conveniently hidden locations. After a little convincing, Hat Kid nodded, accepting the young boy's help.

"Woo! Yes! My first real quest as a hero!" K.O. jumped for joy.


	3. Party Problem

K.O. had left Lakewood Plaza Turbo alongside Hat Kid, currently he was stuck with the obligation of making up for Mr. Gar's accidental destruction of one of those important time pieces. Yet it did not stop his overjoy that it might be his first true quest as a hero, and he was eager to complete it.

"I wish Rad and Enid could've came with us! But I guess someone had to run the store," the brush haired boy sighed. He was alone on this quest with someone he had no knowledge of or about. K.O. looked over and saw the top hat wearing girl give a sympathetic nod. He could tell just by the look in her eyes that she had been missing some friends of her own.

"So, do you have any idea how to find them?" K.O. inquired. These important time rewinding objects were hard to miss, but he was hoping they at least had some form of method to search for the time pieces aside from scouring every inch of the entire town. Hat Kid tapped her chest, trying to think. After a moment, she pointed to her top hat.

"Your hat can show us how to find them?" K.O. wondered if he understood that right. She nodded, taking it off her head for a moment and plunking it on top of his, covering his brush hair.

" _ **Whoooa…**_ " K.O. felt his eyes get forced to look toward an area in the distance with an odd white reticle around it, showing the point of interest for him to see. He quirked an eyebrow, confused. Why would a time piece be in a hotel? Hat Kid took the top hat back, resting it upon her head once more at a jaunty angle before flicking it back to normal.

"I went to that hotel once with my mom, it's really big. They always were hosting some kind of big party there," the young boy stated, remembering when he was still small how that place seemed like a giant's home.

"Race you there!" K.O. declared before suddenly dashing off, laughing. Hat Kid smiled, she swiftly swapped out her top hat with a newsboy's cap with goggles on top of it, she pulled the goggles over her eyes before sprinting off quickly, almost bypassing her cohort on this quest in a matter of moments.

"Wow, you're fast! But I can keep up!" K.O. grinned, doing his best to not fall behind. They began to hit a crowded part of the street. The two had to jump around people, over them or under them like mere obstacles.

" _Whoa!_ "

"Watch it, you brats!"

"My food!"

" **Ow!** Didn't your parents ever teach you it's _ **RUDE**_ to jump off people's heads without their permission?!"

The two ignored all the various shouting and threats thrown their way, they were more focused on the race they were having.

"Why are we following them in secret again?" Shannon groaned, wearing a wig and coat in a poor attempt at trying to disguise herself, it was somehow working thus far.

"Because, they're going to find one of those time pieces for us. We just need to let them lead us to it," Raymond had just a fake mustache for his disguise, surprisingly, it was working quite well. They had held themselves back on their stalking efforts when the two young children had begun their race through the crowded streets.

"I get your plan. What I don't get is why we had to do this ourselves! Why couldn't we bring Darell and Jethro?" the spoiled orange colored robot requested. She hated putting in so much hard work that did not involve fighting, "At least then we'd have someone smaller. He'd be able to spy on them easier…"

"Because those two would slow us down," Raymond retorted. Darell was too clumsy to bring along and Jethro's only offensive weapon were his tank like treads for feet.

"Come on! We can't let them get too far out of our sight," Raymond started to hurry along. Shannon rolled her eyes and sighed before she followed. She did not have the same sense of urgency in her that was driving her brother. The promise of more power was great, but unless she actively saw that time piece in front of her eyes, the spoiled robot was not going to get excited for what could be nothing.

* * *

K.O. and Hat Kid arrived at the hotel, the first thing he noticed was the new name it had, _'Party Buster Hotel'_ , the building stood tall before them. The young boy could already notice a difference since he last came here.

"Guess it's focused more on the celebrations since I was little," the Level 1 hero scratched his head, not sure if this hotel was safe inside or full of wild partiers. So far there was not much chaos from the sounds and looks of it all.

Hat Kid had no idea where to go right now. They only had the top hat that could merely point them in the right direction.

"K.O.? I didn't expect to see you here," a voice made their heads turn over to the left. A long green haired woman stood there, sporting a black leotard and bright red boxing gloves, carrying some bags on her left arm.

" _ **Judy!**_ " K.O. suddenly sprung up and hugged Punching Judy. A Level 6 hero and one of the toughest fighters in his neighborhood, Judy used to be his babysitter, but now that he worked at Gar's Bodega, she was no longer needed to watch him after school. When she first got the news, she was sad that her part in raising him was over, but was happy that he was growing up.

"Hahah! It's great to see you! Say, is your mom here?" Punching Judy asked, returning the hug. The young boy shook his head.

"No, I'm here on my first quest as a hero! She's the one I'm helping," the Level 1 boy pointed to Hat Kid who gave a small wave in greeting.

" _Ahh…_ a silent protagonist? Adorable. I used to be one too, but someone pushed my buttons one time too many," Judy lightly laughed, putting down Carol's son.

"So why are you here?" K.O. asked. As happy as he was to see his former babysitter, it was a little random for her to be here. It was so far away from their neighborhood and out of the way.

"Today's the day of my friend's wedding! …Problem is, he wanted to be simple for his bride. No flashy wedding ceremony, no life binding rituals, not even an after party!" the green haired boxer exclaimed, sounding very disappointed in her friend's choices. Hat Kid did not seem too interested in this, but her new friend was intently listening to every word.

" _So…_ they're going to treat this important moment in two heroes' lives like it's nothing?" K.O. could not believe it. His former babysitter shrugged.

"But, the families from both sides decided to surprise them! They're coming here for their honeymoon so we're going to give them a _**REAL**_ party to celebrate too!" Punching Judy pointed a glove covered fist to hotel Party Buster.

"Wow! That's a cool thing of you to do for your friend, Judy," the Level 1 boy really wished he could have helped, but he guessed it was too personal for Judy if she did not want to go requesting help from him and his mother.

"Thanks, K.O. it's taken two months of work and planning to do, but it was worth it! I was getting something that could be a beautiful support to hold up one of the cakes with, lemme show ya," Punching Judy reached into one of her bags, rummaging around for a moment before pulling out an all too familiar item that caught the young kids' attentions.

" **A time piece!** " K.O. excitedly called out. Hat Kid wanted to just take it right then and there, her eyes intently locking on it like it hypnotized her.

"A what?" Punching Judy chirped, confused. She had found the time piece in the window of a store she was passing by. It looked perfect to hold up the base of a multi-stacked cake with, she got it for cheap too.

"That thing messes with time! I'm trying to get one to make up for the one Mr. Gar and I broke for Hat Kid! _Pleaaaaassse_ , Judy, can we have it?!" K.O. went on his knees and begged. Hat Kid felt a layer of awkwardness wash over the conversation. The young girl put her top hat back on. She appreciated his dedication to getting a quest done, but could not help but feel bad at how much he was demeaning himself on her behalf.

"Calm down there, kiddo. You don't need to beg like I'm some crazy old lady holding a key from you until you do a quest for me in trade," Punching Judy helped him back up on his feet, brushing some of the dirt off his knees, her warm reply relieving the young boy.

"I'll give it to you… but I still would've loved to have this for the party. It's perfect for the cake," the green haired young woman sighed, feeling a bit disappointed that this beautiful item turned out to be a dangerous time manipulating device, it was becoming weirdly common in the current day and age. She handed it over to K.O.

" _Hmm…_ Maybe there's a way we can make everyone happy?" he offered, confusing Hat Kid and Punching Judy.

"I thought you said you needed it?" Judy tilted her head. She had forgotten how much the young boy hated leaving anyone that he could help alone. It went against his odd moral code.

"Hat Kid, is it okay if we let Punching Judy use the time piece until after the party?" K.O. requested from his new friend. He had no idea what she needed them for, but if it could wait, he would be more than glad to let the two share the time piece one at a time. After a moment of thought, the top hat wearing girl gave a thumbs up. Her permission was granted.

"You'd really do that for me? Thank you so much, you two! It would've taken way too long to find something nearly as pretty as this," Punching Judy sounded relieved. K.O. returned the hourglass full of silver sand to his former babysitter. The green haired woman gave them both hugs. Suddenly, there were two more people behind them while they were distracted.

" _Wah-_ **Hey!** " the time piece was yanked from her one hand's grasp. The three turned around to the two disguised fellows. Shannon and Raymond quickly tore off their costumes.

"Nice to see you again, you little Lakewood brat!" Shannon cackled while Raymond examined the hourglass.

" _Ah…_ I knew you'd be hunting for more of these! Thanks for giving it over so easil- ** _gack!_** " the sports loving robot was interrupted by a strong left hook to the face, spinning his head around and nearly knocking him off his feet. The attack made him drop the hourglass. Hat Kid caught it before quickly hopping back, keeping her arms tightly around it.

"Hey! You can't interrupt a villain's speech! What kind of hero does that?!" Shannon shrieked.

"The kind who doesn't have time to waste on idiots!" Punching Judy put up her fists.

" _ **Hyah!**_ " K.O. leaped forward, delivering a high kick to Shannon's chest, causing her to fumble back. By the time she got her balance, Judy gave a strong jab to her face, bruising her there and clearly enraging her further.

"I'll try and get my finisher prepared. You two just distract them, please," Punching Judy huffed, not in the mood to waste so much effort on these two Boxmore goons. Hat Kid nodded, putting the time piece down before going to help K.O.

"My, that was quite the cheap shot…" Raymond tried to get up. Hat Kid whacked him on the side of his head with her umbrella.

" _Did…_ Did you just try to assail me with an umbrella?" the sports robot was unable to believe the sight of the little girl that was not even half his height, standing bravely before him.

"Whoa!" K.O. ducked under a buzzsaw that barely touched his hair, cutting a bit off the top. "Hey! My mom spent a lot of time getting my hair this way!"

"Go cry to her then," Shannon gave a smug grin, she then dashed at him and swung wide with her whirring sawblades. K.O. jumped back, quickly thrusting a fist forward and fired a blue aura knuckle that hit her arm, breaking the left sawblade off with the powerful punch.

" _ **Yeow!**_ When'd you get that?!" the orange robot shook it off before continuing her attack with her still functioning weapon, K.O. wished that he really knew how to control that attack more, it was almost random really.

Hat Kid was hiding behind her open umbrella as dozens of dodge balls were being fired at her. So far it was holding up, but Raymond seemed to have an endless supply of sports related weaponry in his arsenal.

Raymond smiled, retracting his hand and allowing a hockey stick to come out. He dispensed a puck from his wrist, he pulled back before he gave the strongest swing he could, sending it flying beneath the open umbrella.

Hat Kid's eyes bulged out of her sockets. A sharp pain shot out from her ankle, toppling her onto the ground. The puck had hit her with full force, so much so that it perhaps cracked her ankle. The umbrella was then knocked over from her not keeping her support up against it. A barrage of dodge balls collided against her like a swarm of bees, knocking her a good distance back.

"Hat Kid!" K.O. gasped. He caught and gripped Shannon's left arm when she had tried to cut him in half while he was momentarily distracted, the aspiring hero was angry to see his new friend hurt. The young boy quickly stomped the ground, turning around and gritting his teeth. The spoiled robot was thrown over his shoulder, surprised by K.O.'s strength.

" _Wuh-_ **oof!** " Raymond collided with his sister, making him stop shooting his dodge balls. The two were tangled up.

"Alright, clear the way, kids!" Punching Judy called out. K.O. looked down to Hat Kid. She was unable to stand back up. He quickly came over before he picked her and her umbrella up to get them out of the way.

"Get off me already!" Raymond grumbled, trying to force her apart from him.

" _ **Me?!** _Your launcher has my arm trapped!" Shannon retorted. Neither suspected Punching Judy as she pulled back her first and spun it to gather up a lot of wind. It enveloped it and the rest of her arm. Her limb was spastically twitching, causing her a good amount of pain.

" _ **Corkscrew Jab!**_ " Punching Judy thrusted forward with all her might, sending out a strong tornado that hit the two robots.

" _Ahhhh!_ "

" **Whoooa!** "

Boxman's robotic children cried as they flew down the street in the superpowered tornado, tearing them both apart. The two were soon out of sight, with some stunned bystanders knocked aside by the strong wind.

" _Wooow…_ I didn't know you could do that!" K.O. accidentally dropped Hat Kid when raising his arms to preemptively cheer, realizing what he had done when hearing her squeak in surprised pain. He looked apologetically nervous when seeing her lift her top hat off her eyes and giving him an aggressive look with a quirked eyebrow.

"I don't like doing that. It nearly takes my arm out of my socket every time," Punching Judy rubbed her pained shoulder. She would get over it. She came over and helped Hat Kid up.

"Are you two okay?" she asked, seeing some bumps bruises and cuts on the two children, it made her feel bad that they got hurt on her watch.

"I'm alright! This means my quest is complete, now that there's nothing threatening the time piece anymore," K.O. looked proud and ecstatic. Hat Kid rubbed her ankle sorely. She was in no condition to take another step on it. She would need to use her umbrella as a crutch. The young girl nodded, insisting she would recover shortly.

"Well, how about I thank you two for helping protect the hotel, and the party too? I imagine they'd have undone everything if they had gotten their hands on it," Punching Judy offered, picking up the silver-sand filled hourglass.

"We're just doing our jobs as heroes, Judy!... At least, I'm pretty sure she's a hero," K.O. said while rubbing his head. He was not entirely sure, but he only had his gut to go off of to tell, for all he knew this could be the most brilliant evil child in the world that was tricking him into helping create a doomsday device, it was a risk worth it in his eyes. K.O. was confident with his guts thoughts.

"How does joining the party sound? It's the least I can do. That way you can just grab this hourglass once it's over," Punching Judy offered them a reward for their heroism, even if it was unintentional. K.O. looked to Hat Kid. She gave a happy nod, looking more than glad to join in.

"Well at least one of us will look dressed right for the party," K.O. chuckled jokingly gaining a laugh from Punching Judy. The green haired woman motioned them to follow, feeling good after having taken the opportunity to beat those robots up. The three headed off into the hotel to help prepare the last of the celebration's needs.

" _Wow…_ all that trouble over something that insignificant huh?" A lighter voice sighed, spying from inside a nearby trash can. He had watched the whole battle.

the odd person grinned.

 _ **"I need to get it for myself…"**_


	4. One Time Piece At A Time

**Authors Note: Hey all, I just wanted to wish you all a happy thanksgiving! If you wanna know what I'm thankful for this year, it's the stray kitten we got a few months ago. I hope you all have/had a good thanks giving. This is Fallen Pens, dropping out.**

* * *

"Wow… this is a lot of people for just two families," K.O. was seated at one of the many tables in the large room the party was taking place in. Hat Kid was beside him, trying to relax, though her ankle still throbbed in pain from the fight earlier.

To fit into the party, at least to a small degree, Punching Judy had put a small clip on bow tie on him. The aspiring hero really did not mind it, but felt like he was being a little rude to be at this celebratory party in such simple attire.

"Sorry about you getting hurt… I wish I knew how to craft medkits…" K.O. rubbed his head, feeling annoyed that his intelligence was so low. Hat Kid was looking around with her top hat resting on the table, not paying much mind to his apology. She found nothing immediately that she could normally use for fast healing around them.

A couple of feet away, Punching Judy could be seen mingling with the young newlyweds. K.O. guessed that the man in a tuxedo vest and thin moustache was Judy's friend, and his new wife was a woman that looked a few years younger than them, with short blonde hair in a red dress. It seemed like a perfect pair, as though the two had shared their years of bonding since they were little.

"I wonder how long until we get to have cake?" K.O. wondered aloud, looking over to the large cake that had three layers to it, each part held up by a fancy looking item. The middle of the cake had the time piece in the center of it holding up the second layer, odd looking pink spheres decorated each individual cake piece.

They both heard a rather low calm ringtone playing out. The bodega worker pulled out his cellphone.

"Enid! Hey," K.O. answered, more than happy to talk to any of his friends.

"Hey, K.O., how goes the quest?" Enid asked. He had been gone for a lot longer than any of them expected, so she became slightly worried about his wellbeing.

"I think it went well. We found a time piece, but we have to wait for this wedding celebration to be over before we can get it… Oh, also, Shannon and Raymond ambushed us when we found it," K.O. explained, surprised when he saw the time on his phone read two in the afternoon. He had been gone for a good few hours already, just for one item to retrieve.

"Seriously? Are you alright?" Enid sounded worried at the mere mention of Boxman's bots, yet somehow was not surprised.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Punching Judy was there to save us! Hat Kid got her ankle hurt from Raymond though," the brush haired boy claimed, sounding a bit disappointed with himself for allowing her to get wounded. She was his quest giver, he felt nothing short of failure due to his inability to protect her.

"Jeez… You want me or Rad to come help you? You know there's no such thing as an easy quest, right?" The level 3 ninja offered, more than able to make a slip away from work to help if need be.

"No need to worry, Enid. I think the hard parts already over! …least I sure hope so. All there is now is to just keep relaxing til we can snatch the time piece," K.O. reassured. The robotic siblings would not dare crash a party that had at least a dozen heroes currently participating.

" _Well…_ Call us if you need help, alright?" Enid told him, trying to be warm with her tone of voice.

" ** _Hahaha! I told you that you were babying him!_** " Rad laughed at their co-worker in the background.

"What was that?" K.O. chirped. He then heard a few swift noises of something being thrown fast and cutting through the air, followed shortly by Rad's terrified screams.

"Sorry, Rad accidentally had a box of kunai fall on him, I need to go help him, have fun at the party K.O.," Enid hurriedly hung up.

" _Uh…_ oh! Looks like they're starting to cut slices of the cake," K.O. averted his gaze to the line of people in front of the cake. By the cake's size, both he and Hat Kid knew that unless they wanted to stuff their faces like it was an eating competition, it was going to take some time to get to the special hourglass.

"Hm? You're going to get some?" The red bandanna wearing boy asked upon seeing Hat Kid getting up. She nodded, putting her top hat back on top of her head. She had to forget about her ankle pain somehow.

"I'll get them. You just take it easy," K.O. insisted. Watching her limp with her sore ankle was simply something he would hate to watch. His mother had taught him a dozen times to treat every hero the same way he would want to be treated, he followed that lesson to heart, even if he applied those teachings toward both villains and heroes alike.

Hat Kid gave a small smile, thanking him. He hopped off alone to go get them some cake with a bright smile.

 _"Hm… I can't decide who to pick to enlist for this task,"_ a strange man in a pink tuxedo watched from the sidelines. He seemed to be scanning the room, leaned against one of the pillars near the doors of the entrance.

 _"That hourglass is a lot more powerful than one measly Glorb. It's just what I need… But I'll get nothing done if I can't get a grip on somebody's skull,"_ he sighed, tapping the tip of his foot against the floor.

Glorbs were a high power source. Natural Glorbs were the normal type most preferred getting a hold of, but took longer to create, but bore far more power. Manufactured Glorbs were forced to be expedited through their growth to prime use, they provided nearly as much power, but unfortunately with a lot less time to spare. This was how most villains powered their devices, robots included.

 _"…and I think I just found the right brain to pick at,"_ the tuxedoed man grinned when his gaze focused on the unaware Hat Kid.

* * *

K.O. was trying his best to get some cake, but there were a lot of people in the way who seemed to barely pay attention to their families. Right when sweets were announced did they come.

" **Excuse me!** _**Please?** Hello?_" the Level 1 hero was ignored. He was beginning to realize that he and Hat Kid were probably the only kids here, that somehow made it easier for the adults to tune him out.

Hat Kid's head rested on her arms as she leaned over the table, waiting patiently for the sweets. The young girl felt her top hat slip off her head and go onto the table. A gloved hand was placed on the back of her head, stealing her attention.

"Hey there, kid, you sick?" she heard an older toned voice. The tone alone made the man sound like he had several life times of experiences. Hat Kid looked to the pink tuxedoed man behind her. It was just one glove that he wore, while the other hand was bare. She brushed the odd touch as an older person overstepping their boundaries with no thought. She shook her head, answering that she was not sick, but certainly tired.

Things quickly became tense when the pink tuxedoed man seemed to be intent on not removing his hand from her head. Hat Kid felt a sharp pain shoot through her skull that made her break her head free, holding her head that throbbed in agony far worse than brain freeze. She bit her lip, trying to withstand it.

" _ **Huh?!**_ " K.O. and most of the room's attention was grabbed by a loud high-pitched scream. He threw his slices of cake aside before shoving his way through the people in his way.

" **Hat Kid?!** " he gasped, rushing over to his new friend who lay on the floor, writhing in agony.

"I'm impressed by what your memories have…" the tuxedoed man chuckled, rubbing his hands together, "My, it's so fun to see people's journeys."

"What's going on?!" Punching Judy came over when she heard the commotion. All eyes were on the uninvited guest.

"What'd you do to her?!" K.O. growled. To see Hat Kid hurt angered him.

"Reading people's minds so fast tends to have a bit of a bad side effect, she's gonna be hurting for a while, but you don't need to get worked up about it," the man cackled, stretching as he glared at the multiple heroes that were at the ready to pound him.

"Allow me to introduce myself… I'm Leistung, the one and only. I'm here to get that little hourglass from the cake," Leistung exclaimed, cracking his fingers afterwards, continuing his stretches like he had not seen a fight in a decade.

"It's not yours! Now you need to turn around, shut the front door and get out!" the Level 1 boy spat, letting one of the other party goers help Hat Kid up, to get her out of the way and to try to reduce the pain.

"K.O., you need to calm down. Going rampant is a bad idea," Punching Judy informed him. Anger was nothing but an obstacle as far as she cared. It meant more devastation than what this strange man could do. K.O. seemed to intently listen to his former babysitter at the mention of his anger going out of control. He took in a deep breath to tone down his temper.

"Well, I'm guessin' you won't be handing that over to me huh? Doesn't matter who or what it belongs to, because I need it so I'm gonna get it!" the smug man did not back down, despite the two heroes stepping up for battle.

"If it's a fight you want, I'm more than happy to oblige! Here, I'll even let you have the first swing," Leistung smugly grinned, leaning over as if to let his chin get down to K.O.'s level. Punching Judy stayed on her guard, doubting this was anything good.

" **Power fist!** " K.O. threw a giant fist of blue energy with one strong thrust at his foe. Before it hit him, a giant dark hand rose from the floor, catching it and crushing the aura fist with ease in their grasp.

"Paper beats rock," Leistung chuckled, watching as the dark hole on the floor widened. Whatever dwelt in it was trying to open it big enough to escape through it.

" _Wh…_ What's going on?!" the green-haired boxer felt genuinely afraid. She, K.O. and Hat Kid, as well as the rest of the crowd from the background, watched as out from the shadow came a tall, lanky and legless figure of darkness, nearly three times their size. His face shined yellow glowing eyes and a creepy glowing trickster smile to match.

" ** _Hahahaha!_** Hey there, kiddos!" the dark ghoul cackled, twisting around himself. The crowd was awestruck, yet Hat Kid remembered this individual far too well.

"Meet my new comrade… plucked straight from the memories of your friend. What is his name again? The Snatcher, was it?" Leistung scoffed. This was most of his plan in mind. They watched as the Snatchers eyes and mouth fused together into one giant glowing eye. He began quickly firing several rings around that hit the ground across all the room, seemingly vanishing on contact with the floor.

" _What the…?_ " Punching Judy raised an eyebrow, K.O. was confused too. A bright glow of several colors suddenly flashed. The green haired boxer quickly yanked him and Hat Kid backward,s as an eruption of dark red and purple energy erupted from the floor where the rings landed. The many party goers were caught up in the explosions. K.O. and Hat Kid could only watch in horror. Punching Judy grit her teeth.

"You monster!" the green haired boxer leapt toward them, giving a wide swing and hitting the Snatcher in the side. His body instead of recoiling in pain, just wrapped around her boxing glove instead.

" _ **What?!**_ " Punching Judy gave another wide swing to the same result, it was like punching very flexible putty. He was showing no reaction to the hits. She spun around and delivered a strong uppercut right to his jaw, making the Snatcher fling backwards. The boxer grinned, thinking she finally found his weak point.

"You done yet, kid? Sorry, but blue isn't my color… guess that makes me invincible, huh?" the Snatcher laughed, flinging back to his original position with not even a scratch on his dark body. He grabbed Punching Judy with one of his hands. Leistung took the chance of the distraction to approach the cake, simply enjoying the chaos.

"Judy! _Oh gosh…_ what should I do?!" K.O. panicked. His newest friend could not run, dozens of innocent people were being injured by the eruptions of dark energy, and his former babysitter was seemingly unable to do anything.

"Ah, there you are," Leistung chuckled as he got to the cake. He went forward and yanked the hourglass from it. The cake's layers collapsing on top of each other and the decorations that once were on top of it now scattered into a giant mess on the floor.

Hat Kid noticed one of the decorations atop one of the pieces of cake. A small pinkish ball with a heart in it that resembled candy.

"What? You're really thinking about cake right now…?" K.O. did not know how to feel about this. He had to pull her aside again when another explosion went off beside them. The young girl felt her top hat get yanked off her head by the Snatcher. He put it on top of his own head instead now.

"Come on, kiddos! You don't wanna get in on the fun?!" the dark creature pinned Punching Judy on the floor, and then spun-threw her ahead past them, right through one of the tables.

"W-we need to call for help! Come on, I'll get you somewhere safe," K.O. had no idea what else to do. The giant monster's stare down on him terrified him to his core. He suddenly felt himself get grabbed by the lapels.

 **"GET ME THOSE PONS!"** Hat Kid suddenly yelled into his face. Her voice sounded high pitched and rather cuter in tone, but this was the first time he heard her ever talk to him scared him. K.O. stared for half a moment. He nodded, getting up and darting off. He jumped over one of the rings before it erupted. He ran around, grabbing as many small pink Pons as he could gather off the floor.

"He-here!" the Level 1 hero came rushing right back over, handing her the five Pons he could find. The rest were either destroyed in the explosions or just impossible to get to at this point. Hat Kid opened her mouth to consume and swallow them all whole.

"Hup!" Hat Kid hopped back onto her feet flexing happily with a quick pink aura around her that vanished in half a second. The young girl looked unscathed.

"Hope those are tastier than potions," K.O. had enough of potions after he a whole day spent drinking them. He watched as she put the top hat away then picked her umbrella up off the ground. She looked to the aspiring hero with a grin.

"…Please tell me we're not thinking the same thing," he gulped. Hat Kid held up her free fist, letting him bump knuckles with her as if to tell each other good luck.

"Let's try a couple of these!" the Snatcher laughed, creating a dozen blue vials full of blue liquid and throwing them all at the two children. They both quickly scattered, letting the vials explode on the ground into blue smoke.

"Not enough, eh? Let's try a thousand, then," the dark figure created so many that it was hard to see through them, making them all orbit his head. He began to throw them by the dozen. Hat Kid panted as she dodged the barrage of bottles. K.O. meanwhile went right for Leistung.

"I bet you're waiting for me to turn blue, aren't you? Well sorry, kiddo. Like I said, Blue isn't my color… and that makes me invincible," the Snatcher chuckled, throwing another explosive ring toward the young girl. She dove away from it right before it exploded.

"Of course. These two heroes are specialists at dodging!" the tuxedoed man simply leaned back a bit and dodged the wide swing from K.O. The hero tried to take the hourglass, but he was kicked in the face and knocked onto his back.

"Give it back!" K.O. got up and threw another aura knuckle, and then kicked a few more waves of blue energy to follow it up. Leistung put up his guard, taking each hit directly to his forearms. The attacks made him slide back a little.

"Someone that gets stronger with anger, huh? Maybe you should take it easy!" Leistung pulled out an odd looking gun, quickly pulling the trigger. It fired a rocket propelled dart that jetted for K.O. He was scared that it was an explosive and braced himself, only for the dart rocket to go through his hair, not even piercing an edge of his skin.

" _Wait…_ you aren't some super genius child with a large forehead? The _**ONE TIME**_ I gamble on that, and it turned out to be wrong!" Leistung looked irritated. The dart flew for the Snatcher and pierced one of the beakers flying around him, exploding the contents all over the dark figure, painting him blue on random parts of his body.

"Did… Did you just color me blue with my _**OWN**_ attack? Th-this doesn't count, right? Surely this doesn't count!" the Snatcher stuttered. Hat Kid grinned from ear to ear and ran toward him. The dark figure threw another several explosions, but her sprint cap let her run right past them. She whacked the umbrella right into his lower body, causing him to turn bright red for a brief second before he flew backwards to the floor, the top hat flying off his head letting her catch it and return it to her own.

"Now's my chance!" K.O. declared. While Leistung was distracted, the hero ran up and landed a high kick on the bottom of the time piece, kicking it out of the villain's hands and high into the air, toward Hat Kids direction.

" _N-no!_ My power source!" the man cried. The Snatcher tried to grab Hat Kid, and she simply jumped over his hand and dove onto it, bouncing off and leaping towards the hourglass, which she successfully grabbed. K.O. quickly ran over and caught her in his arms.

"Bye bye," Hat Kid told the Snatcher with a wave, she then began shaking the hourglass vigorously. The time piece began glowing brighter as the silver sand within was rattled around, until they were absorbed by its then blinding flash.

* * *

" _Wha-_ what's going… _on…?_ " Leistung stood where he once spied on the party, leaned against the pillar.

"You could call it a do-over," K.O. smiled. All eyes in the room were on the man in the pink tux, and nobody looked happy, not even Punching Judy. Time may have been rewound, but their memories were not.

"You think this'll stop me?! I'll just call my friend over _aga…_ Why isn't it working?!" Leistung shook his hand. The glove was doing nothing. His eyes went wide when he realized what happened.

"N… _No…_ You rewound it to make it be so I never laid a single finger on her head?!... Clever," Leistung growled. He then felt a hard hit to his lower jaw, delivered by a strong uppercut from Judy. She then jabbed him in the face that left him with a nasty blue bruise on his face. Hat Kid whacked his back with her umbrella, making him flash bright red for a moment before he was sent flying into the air.

" **Power Fist!** " K.O. fired another large aura knuckle that had a beam spiritually powered from his fist. It made Leistung rocket and break right through the ceiling, screaming as he soared to the heavens above. The party goers watched in awe at the power behind that attack.

* * *

After a minute of checking around to make sure everyone was alright, after from the round of applause for the heroes, the three heroes stood outside of the hotel.

"Time travel is a pain… but thanks for saving everybody, I appreciate it a lot," Punching Judy thanked the two young kids, glad they came along. Hat Kid still held the time piece. The cake unfortunately had been left with only two layers after the reset to the battle, but it was more than a fair trade to make sure nobody was hurt.

" _Well…_ looks like my quest is complete, Hat Kid. I'm glad I could help you out," K.O. smiled, looking proud with his hands on his hips. The top hat wearing girl paused for a moment. She put the time piece on the ground before she gave him a quick tight hug, to show her gratitude.

" _ **Hrk!**_ " the young boy coughed, his lungs feeling crushed. The hug soon ended, and Hat Kid picked the hourglass back up with a look of pure glee.

"Thank you," she simply said, before she turned around and began walking in the opposite direction, stashing the time travel device into her coat. K.O. waved goodbye.

"Your first real quest completed… it's nice to see you growing up into a good hero," Punching Judy complimented the boy she used to watch after. He looked embarrassed at the praise, but nodded.

"Even if I was just cleaning up after me and my boss's mistake, it feels good to know I'm strong enough to help even more people out," K.O. exclaimed. His pride seemed to be at an all-time high. However, something crossed his mind.

"Wait… if time was rewound that means… OH NO! I need to get back to work!" he gasped. The bodega wasn't going to close for a couple of hours now, while it saved time it did not change the fact he was required to go back the second he finished here.

"Bye, Judy! I'll tell Mom you said hi!"

K.O. then ran like there was no tomorrow. Punching Judy could not help but laugh at this, but she was glad that he was happy to have made and helped his new friend. K.O. hoped that he might see Hat Kid again, someday soon. The green haired boxer waved while he left, before she returned to the party.

 _ **"That kid is something else."**_


	5. The Long Journey

It had been a few days since K.O. had completed his first quest. He had been proud of himself after it as well. His mother and friends even celebrated it like it was as important as a birthday party however that seemed to be the most excited he had been all week, which was odd for the usually eager boy.

"Something buggin' ya, K.O.?" Rad asked, the two doing their separate tasks for the bodega. The customer turnout seemed to be back to normal. Things were not as slow anymore, it was nice to be back to the usual.

"Kinda… I was able to use my powers like it was nothing on that quest, but now, I can't even make a power fist," K.O. explained. He felt like one of those odd heroes that could only use their powers on quests. It was oddly specific, but some people needed limits, or they might go overboard. Even villains sometimes did so.

"Guess that explains why you've not been acting like yourself," the stock boy really had no clue what he could say. His close friend had been doing nothing short of his best, ever since he first started working here while training to become a hero. But the alien could not blame K.O. for feeling so defeated by the constant inconsistencies in his seemingly growing strength.

"Don't get so down about it. K.O.," Enid spoke while coming over. She gave Rad a short glance to make sure he kept his mouth shut while she was trying to comfort their best friend. He got the message loud and clear.

"But Enid, what am I worth if I can't even control my powers?" the brush haired boy sighed, his gaze returning to the floor. She crouched down to his height and put a hand on his back.

"K.O. Sometimes, people are better in the moment than they are in training. I was never able to do that vanishing technique when I was younger. I kept putting the replacement log where I wanted to be. I got hurt a lot from those mistakes, but when I got into a fight with someone else, I was able to do it perfectly," the purple haired teenager explained to the best of her ability, but her personal experience would only do so much. K.O. had so much hidden potential that they had witnessed so many times that Enid could not blame him for being frustrated with being unable to access it, even though it was there.

"I'm just better in an actual fight than practice?" K.O. replied. He felt her hand on his head messing up his hair slightly.

"Yeah! That doesn't mean you should stop training though, everything is important for a hero's life," the Level 3 ninja finished. Rad was doing his best to resist making a joke about her babying him more, deciding to try and be helpful.

"She's right. I can't memorize my finger rays unless I'm in a fight," Rad added. It was something that had made him the joke a few times before he had a different power for each finger in his hand. Both hands were the same, "Heck, I have such trouble keeping up that I had to write on my digits to make sure I don't blow anything up. I'm sure you both knew that, though."

"Thanks, you guys… you two are the best," K.O. seemed to cheer up now. Enid was relieved, starting to understand what the alien stockboy meant with the joking about her behavior with their young friend.

"We gotta take care of each other after all. No such thing as a lone hero… except those that are… y'know… lone heroes," Rad felt his sentence trail off toward the end.

" **Hey, is this place open?** " A harsh toned voice shook the trio into wanting to hide instantly, but it sounded like a customer demanding service and was simply enraged to see no one at the front counter.

"Not it," Rad said.

"Not it," K.O. quickly chirped upon realizing what they were doing.

" _Not…_ dang it," Enid let out a long sigh. She hated dealing with customers, but fighting them off was not the answer. She simply walked off and let her two friends watch from as far as they wanted to.

The two low leveled heroes watched through one of the shelves after knocking a few items down to spy on the situation at hand. Upon peeking through, they both were surprised at what they saw.

" _Wow… He's as big as Mr. Gar…!_ " K.O. gulped at the sight of a man with messy grey hair standing near the front counter. He was in a pair of overalls with a red undershirt, his muscles bulging slightly.

"You got a card on him?" Rad wondered.

"Sorry, I don't," K.O. shook his head. He did not need to rummage through his collection to figure that out. He would remember someone who looked as strong as the very man the Level 1 hero idolized. They hoped their purple haired friend would be alright.

"Can I help you?" Enid asked, immediately trying to cut to the point. The man was caught off guard when seeing the ninja that was barely past half as tall as him. A big man like him did not seem like the type to be surprised so easily

"Something wrong?" She quirked.

"Sorry, you just look a lot like my wife… I'm looking for a pawn shop. Do you know where one nearby might be?" the man asked. He appeared to be under a lot of mental stress, but was doing his best to mask it. The Level 3 ninja could tell by looking to his eyes though.

"A pawn shop…? Sorry, but Lakewood Plaza Turbo doesn't have any of those here," Enid answered. The big man looked disheartened. Despite his hard tone, he seemed to be genuinely softhearted.

"Where are you from, anyway?" Enid questioned, "I've never seen you here before."

"I'm from Pelican Town. It's a small place in Stardew Valley," his answer shocked her, as well as her coworkers.

" _ **Stardew Valley?!**_ That's like, three hundred miles away! Jeez… What's so important that you have to come all the way here for?" Rad exclaimed. He and the Level 3 ninja highly doubted this man was here to visit a pawn shop for such a long trip by now. K.O. and Rad had come out from hiding when the situation was revealed to be calm.

"Well, I suppose telling you won't do any harm…" the man rubbed his neck, glad there were people willing to at least listen to his troubles. "I'm Andenna. I've been working on a farm I inherited for the last twelve years. Pelican Town is simple. Stardew Valley is like heaven to me. …But a problem appeared out of nowhere. Everyone told me I'm worrying about nothing, but I wanted to be sure."

K.O. seemed to intently listen. Another potential quest sounded exciting, as much as he resisted blindly offering his help instantly. This could be someone too paranoid from living the farm life and overworking himself, but he had to listen to his plight. "What kind of problem?"

"Every night at two a.m., I hear weird noises from up north… I'm pretty sure it's coming from the mines in the mountain, but that place is a hundred and twenty floors of pure pain deep. I came here to try and pawn off some of my items to get money to hire a hero to help investigate," Andenna finished his story, trying to keep it as short as possible. The three bodega workers looked to one another.

"You need to hire a hero…? You look buff enough to suplex a tree," Enid still found some oddities in his story. Surely this man was too big and strong to be spooked by some odd noises in the late night.

"I'm a farmer, of course. I've got to be strong… But I'm a terrible fighter." Andenna exhaled, feeling disappointed in himself. He knew he was so strong, yet so cowardly. "I know it sounds stupid, but I have to take care of Pelican Town. It's not just my home. It's my wife and daughters home, too… I'd do anything to make sure Stardew Valley can stay as safe as possible for them."

"…I know what you're thinking. K.O.," Enid looked to the practically bouncing young boy.

"I don't like where this is going," Rad groaned, holding his head.

"You traveled so far to try and get help for your quest. Why don't we help you instead? For free!" K.O. excitedly offered, but felt the cashier worker's hand on his head, halting his bouncing.

"Well not for free, but we're a lot cheaper than one of those charge per hour heroes," Enid agreed, interested in getting some training on something other than the same robots that she had fought a million times before.

" _You'd…_ You'd really do this for me?" Andenna was in disbelief.

"We're heroes! It's our job!" K.O. jumped, ignoring their real jobs here.

"You really think your mom is going to let you go on that long of a trip?" Rad quirked an eyebrow. That took the wind out of the young boy's sails. He would have to ask his mom about it. Thankfully she worked next door to their door.

"I just gotta let her know how important it is to me! I'm out of school for the summer anyway," K.O. reassured with a smile his confidence brimming as potently as ever.

"Thank you all so much… I'll pay for the travel costs," Andenna thanked them all. The trio were pulled into a giant hug. They could feel their joints snapping at how much pressure he was putting on them.

" _And I thought working in stock would be the thing that ruins my back…!_ " Rad coughed.

" _Can't… vanish out…_ " Enid groaned.

" **I can't feel my arms**!" K.O. squeaked.

* * *

For Carol to see her child while she was seated on break wasn't what shocked her, but what had surprised her was when he explained to her what quest he wanted to do that needed her permission. She had the time though to think on it before she gave him her answer.

"The answer is no, K.O."

K.O. was on his hands and knees. His friends were outside waiting for him. "But Mom!" He begged, "This is a quest, it'll be my second one this week! The last one gave me enough experience to get me a tenth of a level up!"

"K.O., I'm really proud of the spirit you have as a hero… but honey, you're wanting to travel somewhere over two hundred miles away, all because of some noise that could be wind in a tunnel," Carol explained. It was simply too ridiculous to travel so far from home to help a paranoid farmer.

"Winds coming from 120 floors deep underground of a tunnel?" K.O. asked, confused. His mother sighed.

"Those caves weren't made naturally if they go that deep…" Carol felt bad for her telling her son this, but she had to, "But there has to be at least one hero in all of Stardew Valley that can handle investigating them. Sorry, sweetheart, the answer's no."

For a second, K.O. was crushed. But then he had an idea cross his mind, he tried his best to hide his inner excitement.

"Can I at least spend the weekend at Enid's? She said she might be able to help me train to control my powers better," K.O. requested. His mother nodded without hesitating, a very warm smile on her face.

"If your friends think they have an idea on how to help you with it, then go ahead, peanut. Just be sure to answer my calls," Carol rubbed his head. The young aspiring hero jumped up and hugged her with a bright smile. She gladly returned the hug.

"Bye, mommy! I'll see you later!" he then darted off with a bright grin on his face. His mother chuckled to herself.

"Oh, peanut. You really need to work on lying better… but guess I can't stop you from wanting to help people… a hundred n' twenty floors isn't too deep of a gauntlet to fight down," Carol returned to her lunch, hoping her son would be safe.

 ** _"This'll be a good test for you."_**


	6. Train Talk

**_Authors note: Hey all, I just wanted to say thank you all so much for these great first few months on this site, I hope my writings been improving to some degree at least. But yes, I wanted to let you all know that this is going to be my last update for a week or so, now I know that doesn't sound unusual by any means because of my schedule. But it's christmas and new years, and frankly, my hands hurt plus stress is causing me immense issues, and I'd like to take it easy to have fun with my family an comrades. This is Fallen Pens, dropping out._**

* * *

A loud whistle sounded through the air of the countryside with steam blowing out of it. A train was heading down the tracks at relatively high speed, pulling along several different carts.

" _Wooow…_ I've never been on a train before!" the awestruck K.O. stared out the window. The train carts had multiple rooms available to them. Due to the long trip, they would inevitably wind up having a place to slumber when things became dark.

"I've had to sneak onto a few, they were a lot cheaper than this though," Enid claimed, glad that Andenna had been kind enough to cover the price of the tickets for them to board this train. The purple haired ninja was kicked back with her feet up on the table, looking out the window into the good view. Night time was slowly becoming more prominent with each passing minute.

"I still think we're wasting our time," Rad said, laid on the long chair that the passengers could slumber on while they rode the train. He still believed the farmer had heard one odd sound too many and was simply overreacting.

"Come on Rad. It can't hurt to give this town a sense of security… besides, Andenna is one of the biggest farmers in all of Stardew Valley. If he isn't at his best, then it might affect all of Pelican Town," Enid argued. Farmers played a more important role than most knew, especially if most of the town was dedicated to farming. A damaged farm may quickly fall into something far worse, like a snowball from a mountain.

The three suddenly heard knock on their door that caught them off guard from how hard the fist rapping at the door was.

"Come in…?" K.O. hesitantly chirped the invite in.

"Hey, sorry if I'm interrupting anything. But I wanted to talk with you guys," Andenna opened the door, holding a newspaper in his left hand.

"Nah… We were just chillaxing," Radicles stated, watching the man go and take a seat at the table with the aliens two best pals.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" K.O. asked. He wanted him to trust them completely and feel comfortable around them.

"I figured I'd come by to answer any questions you guys might have before I try to get some sleep," Andenna responded. He looked far more relieved to simply have the heroes' company.

"Well, I was kinda curious what it was you were planning on pawning for cash," Rad spoke. Enid facepalmed, feeling annoyed to know they were prying into personal information, but she knew no amount of kunai thrown at the alien could undo the inquiry now. K.O. could not deny his curiosity also.

"In Stardew Valley, it goes for a lot, but I was thinking it might be worth a lot more outside of there. That's how I wound up at Lakewood Plaza," the tanned farmer seemed relaxed enough to relieve any worries about certain things being too personal to ask about. He reached into his pocket, rummaging around for something.

" _ **Whooooooaaaaa!**_ " K.O. gasped when the farmer presented a jewel slightly larger than his fist. It had a rainbow of colors running across it like the beauty of the sun reflecting off water had been captured in stone.

"Wow… that thing looks ancient… What is it?" Enid asked. As far as she could tell, it was as real as precious gems came. It looked like it could be worth millions of technos.

"Jeez, where'd you nab that?" Rad added, more than curious. It gave him the impression that the farmer was more of a thief than anything.

"I found it in the quarry near town… there really hard to find, as far as I know," Andenna said, brushing it off like it was nothing, "And not gonna lie, a lot of people have requested I give it to them, but I kept it, just in case I ever needed it."

"I'm still confused about one thing you said," K.O. spoke up.

The farmer put away the valuable jewel and looked to him. "And what's that, little guy?"

"You said the cave goes one hundred and twenty floors deep, but you hate fighting… so how do you know how deep it is if you've never been to the bottom?" K.O. explained to the best of his confused ability. Now that it was spoken aloud, all the bodega workers became quickly confused at the contradiction.

"I did say that, right? I detest fighting to no end… But you see, when I first got to Pelican Town, I needed money, and the easiest place to get it was mining. The treasures became far more valuable in the deeper floors than it was in the early bits of the mine," Andenna sighed. Money was the primary issue for any starting farmer, almost like it was practical gambling.

"Uhuh…?" Radicles nodded. So far, his explanation made sense.

"I got to the bottom, and by then had gotten my farm going… but back when I was dating my wife, she was trying to get better at swordplay. Her father didn't approve of that though… he was a man that believed in the old fashion type of stuff," Andenna rested the newspaper aside on the table. The others seemed more interested in listening to his story to glance at it.

"Old fashioned? _Don't tell me…_ " Enid held her head as if trying to suppress the upcoming headache.

"Yep. He thinks women should only be in the house or the kitchen… she couldn't build the nerve up to go into the mines alone, so I went in with her. After we got married, we never went near those mines again," Andenna finished his story after the long-winded talk the three bodega workers, they did not know how to reply. They never imagined a farmer's life to sound so odd before.

"Money and love… two things that can drive anybody to do anything, no matter how weak or how big of a wuss they are," Rad's words sounded rude, but they were as accurate as an arrow to a bullseye.

"Mom always told me that it takes a strong person to fight, but a stronger person to run away," K.O. commented. It was just one of those lessons that Carol wanted him to be aware of for when he inevitably did have to run from a battle one day, so he would not feel guilty over it.

"Thanks for trying to boost my self-confidence, but I know I'm no good in a fight. I don't have a hero's blazing spirit," Andenna mused. Most heroes that got hired to handle a quest would simply cut off contact from the quest giver and only talk to them after the adventure was done, it felt reassuring to have such genuine kind people with him.

"You said I reminded you of your wife?" Enid figured they already had pried into his life thus far. She assumed there was no reason to stop now until he felt tired of answering.

"You both have purple hair… But boy, you two are completely different galaxies when it comes to personalities," Andenna chuckled jokingly. The purple haired ninja did not know if that was a compliment.

"Is she a ninja?" K.O. chirped, imagining that the small town had to have some odd history with some type of heroes.

"Two Enids? Sounds like a nightmare just imagining it," Rad laughed loudly, before his chair suddenly collapsed. He hit the ground with a pained thud, one glance over showed the chair with one of the legs split in half and Enid sheathing a hidden kunai back into her boot.

"Nah. We're just farmers for life til death do us part. She's more into the spiritual side of things, worships Yoba a fair bit too" the farmer stretched. As the conversation went on, they noticed that the room was getting darker. The sun may have just about set.

"Wow, it's late. Sorry for keeping y'all up," Andenna stood up and helped the Level 2 alien out of the floor and back onto his feet.

"Don't worry about it! It's fun to hear other people's stories," K.O. exclaimed, even if he was only speaking for himself. Andenna left the trio's room of the train to go back to his own, so they could all get some rest.

"Alright. I'm going to get some shut eye and hope we'll be there when I wake up," Enid told her close friends. Even if she hoped this quest would turn out to be a disappointment, she still wanted to be well rested in case there was truly something threatening Pelican Town.

"Same here, dudes. As nice as it is to stare out a window for hours on end, we're probably about to go into a long tunnel," Rad added, more than up to going to sleep right now.

"Goodnight guys! I guess I better get some sleep… too?" K.O. stopped himself when the newspaper resting on the table caught his attention.

 _"Today marks the three-year anniversary of team_ **FEV-R** _'s sudden vanishing."_

K.O. curiously picked it up. He set his eyes to the familiar man on the side in the cover.

"Leistung?" K.O. recognized that familiar face all too well. The picture underneath the headline may be in black and white, but his face and the single glove on his hand was impossible to mistake. Even the suit looked almost the same. There were four people around Leistung.

 _"Formerly Ever Villains Reformed were once a great team that were very ambitious, and appeared to be on the path of becoming as big as point. These once high-level villains turned their lives around and were able to level their evil all the way down to be positive again. Despite their low levels of heroism, they were quite strong. Unfortunately, on one mission that they completed with relative ease, they all vanished without a trace."_

 _"It's like they got punished for trying to change their lives around…"_ K.O. thought while reading the newspaper. He still found no sense with why Leistung would work so hard to become a hero after spending most of his life as a villain, only to change things back so he could return to being a villain.

" **Wuh?!** " his attention was stolen by a ringing came from his pocket. He quickly retrieved his phone before holding it up to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, Peanut! How goes training?" Carol's voice piped up from the phone, making her only son gulp with worry.

"M-Mommy! Hi… We just were about to go to sleep, actually," K.O. half lied. He knew he would be in big trouble if he missed a single phone call from his mother.

"Heh… yeah, me too. I wanted to just call so I could tell you goodnight and let you know I love you," Carol laughed, seeming relaxed. The Level 1 aspiring hero felt immensely by the lack of long list of inquiries happening.

"I love you too, Mom. Thanks for letting me spend the weekend with Enid," K.O. walked over to the part of the long chair, where he was going to sleep next to his friends.

"No problem, Peanut. Just remember to behave… well, I'll let you go. G'night," Carol then hung up. K.O. let out a relaxed sigh and leaned back on his seat.

"Golly, things get harder and more confusing as you grow up…" KO signed to himself before closing his eyes and trying to rest.

 _ **"I feel like I have more questions for Leistung now though..."**_


	7. Monstrous Evidence

K.O. yawned as he walked through some of the train carts. Few lights were on between the carts, but they were low enough so that things were dim, and nobody sleeping would be disturbed.

"I wonder how long we've been in this tunnel for…? It has to be going through the world's largest mountain," K.O. was still amazed by some of this. He had not traveled anywhere near this far before, aside from some camping trips with his mother. He still felt terrible for lying to her like he did. But sometimes, a hero had to do a little bit of wrong to make things right.

"Hm?" the young boy heard an odd noise that caught his attention. It sounded like clanking coming from the roof of the train. He brushed it off as nothing but himself hearing things, and he made his way through the next cart, which was the dining cart. It seemed more like a small diner modeled after a twenty-year-old design.

"Can I help ya, young'un?" he heard. He saw an older woman working behind the counter.

" _Uh,_ I could use something to drink, if you don't mind?" K.O. came over, hopped up onto the stool and took a seat. He reached for his techno card, but the woman behind the counter waved a hand.

"Don't worry about it. I can let one drink slip by unnoticed. I know how pricey just the tickets for this ride are," the worker chuckled, rummaging around for a glass. He was more than happy with that news. However, she paused and winced in pain, holding her head with her right hand.

" _He-hey!_ Are you alright?" K.O. worriedly asked. Her pain just came out of the blue.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine… _Sorry…_ I think some jerk tricked me into giving up some of my life force again… yknow, like a door to door cultist? Except he had a real silver tongue…" the diner cart worker sighed, looking more irritated with herself than anything for letting it happen. The symptoms made the preteen feel uneasy.

"Say, _uh…_ when did you start feeling the pain?" K.O. asked as his drink of orange juice was slid to him.

"About a week ago. Some dude said he could read my mind to predict my future for free. When he finished, he left back to his room on the train and I started hurting… I've been achy ever since," she explained to the best of her throbbing brain's recollection. All this did was worry the young boy further.

"Did he have only one glove on, wear a suit, and act all high and mighty?" the Level 1 hero pressed further. She nodded.

"Yeah. That basically sums him up to a T," the diner worker shrugged. Immediately then, a single thought hit the forefront of K.O.'s brain.

 _"Why would Leistung be on the train to Stardew Valley? …the timing matches up to when those noises started there, too…"_ he muttered his train of thought. He had been taught many times that coincidences were some of the rarest things in this world, and that he should not be so quick to fall into the conclusions of it.

The same noise from before sounded from the roof of the train. As the two looked up, a scorpion stinger suddenly stabbed through the roof, followed by several more, shocking them both.

"I hate to tell you this, but… that guy did nothing but steal your worst memories to recreate them for his own purposes!" K.O. exclaimed. Before they knew it, a giant hole opened in the roof and several monsters began climbing through it. They resembled scorpions, but with bat wings and vampire teeth that sparked with volts of electricity.

"Electropions… What did she go through to meet tropical monsters like this?" K.O. asked himself. In some parts of the world, electropions were like rats, easy to squash, but he never had fought any before. He had only seen them in videos.

"Start running! I'll call security!" she ordered, though the dozen monsters entering the dining cart terrified her. However, as the worker reached for the phone, the power flickered. Three of the electropions on the ceiling were cutting wires from the roof, consuming them like strings of spaghetti.

"I'll hold them off! You just get out of here!" the young fighter ordered.

"Are you nuts?!" she asked as she ducked under a bolt of thunder that got fired their way by one of the fully charged electropions.

"I'm a hero, _so…_ yeah, I guess!" K.O. punted one of the electric bugs away with a strong kick. The young lady stopped arguing and simply did as he said and made leave. He just hoped she would get ahold of security instead of leaving him to handle all the work.

"Whoa!" K.O. jumped aside when another bolt of electricity flew at him, barely missing and hitting the counter behind him, leaving a harsh scorch mark. The young hero grabbed the nearest Electropion by the stinger of a tail and swung it to the left, throwing it into the wall and making it splatter across it like a wasp on a windshield.

"I can't let them do anymore harm to the train's power…!" K.O. cursed. He hated to imagine what would happen if he let these electric consuming bugs tear apart wires at their leisurely pleasure.

The young hero jumped up over one of the stingers that tried to zap him alive. He grabbed onto the light fixture on the ceiling with both hands and began to swing back and forth, over and under it.

"Hey! If you want me, you're gonna have to catch me, first!" the Level 1 hero taunted the monsters. With one last swing, he let go and threw himself up through the hole in the roof, landing on top of the train. There was enough space for him to stand on top.

"Wow, it really is dark up here…" K.O. gulped. There was plenty of room in the tunnel luckily. The darkness quickly became the least of his worries when several currents of electricity began to light up the small area around him. He felt scared when the Electropions charged up to their fullest power, yet he braced himself.

Two of them fired from both sides. He quickly threw himself onto the floor to dodge the attack. The stray bolts of electricity that missed blasted other electropions away. K.O. swiftly got back up before kicking another one into the air.

" _ **Hi-yah!**_ " K.O. high-kicked the electropion, pinning it against the ceiling. It let out pained cries as it was scraped along the tunnel. After a few moments, the monster became nothing but a stain on his foot.

"Power fist!" the Level 1 hero thrusted his fist forward, throwing a strong knuckle of blue energy, blasting three of the electropions away easily.

"Yeowch!" K.O. screamed, feeling a sharp stinging pain and a shocking jab throughout his body. He turned his head over his shoulder. Two of the electropions had snuck up from behind and impaled him in the back of his left leg and lower back.

"That's it…!" K.O. broke free of their attacks, right when one of them was about to unleash another blast. The young boy grabbed it by the tail and body. He began spinning around as it fired electricity, blasting them all away and killing each one with ease.

"Haah… _Whew…_ " he panted, throwing the last electropion in his hands off the side of the train. As far as he could tell, he had exterminated all of them. He took the opportunity to try and gain his breath back.

* * *

After a few moments, K.O. was back in the dining cart. His wounded leg had given out on him causing him to slip from the ceiling, landing on his side with a thud.

" _I really gotta be more careful…_ " the Level 1 hero coughed when he sat up. He could see the door to the neighboring cart fully open.

"K.O.?!" Rad's familiar voice relieved him. The diner cart worker seemed unable to find security. So, she simply went door to door begging for someone to help. Rad gladly opted in without a second thought.

"H-hey Rad, don't worry. I'm okay…" K.O. tried to reassure as his friend picked him up.

"Where're the monsters?" the alien stock boy looked around cautiously.

"I-I took care of them," K.O. declared, but his body was sore now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

"Well, good work, little buddy… come on, let's get you patched up," Radicles reassured. They began to leave, the alien carrying his little friend in his arms.

* * *

"K.O. what happened?!" Enid asked when the two got back to their shared room. She had been woken up too by that knocking as well. She stayed behind when Rad assured her not to worry. She now regretted listening to the big oaf.

"There were monsters hiding on the roof of the train! They broke in to attack… a-and I think they were set up there to attack heroes," K.O. responded, looking disappointed in himself for not being able to stand up to such a simple enemy, even if there were a mob of them. He turned to his Level 2 best friend. "Rad, can you get Andenna? I have to ask him something important…"

"Oh? Alright, little dude," Rad nodded, "Enid, you handle patching him up."

The Level 3 ninja was about to retort, but stopped herself when K.O. suddenly let out a pained groan.

"Fine, but I'm no doctor," Enid went to her best friend's side to help treat him. "Just stay still… jeez, it's like you got stabbed with an electric spear," she commented. The impalement marks from the electropions had practically scorched the wounds back shut from the high voltage.

"I did. Sorry- **geh!** They were gonna take all the power off the train…" K.O. apologized, but stayed firm with his actions. He just hoped his mother would believe that they were training accidents.

"What's going on?" the door opened and Andenna spoke up, following the alien into the room.

"Andenna! Hey… I'll just say it. I think I know who could be messing in the mine in your town, but I need to know if there is anything valuable there?" K.O. explained, feeling bad for confusing their quest giver. But if they wanted to help him fully, then the young boy required these answers.

"Valuable?" the over a decade-long farmer blinked, "It's a mine full of gems, metals, and monsters… the monsters even drop valuable stuff."

"I don't mean valuable like that," K.O. declared, "I mean… like something super strong."

"Like some space alloy?" Enid chirped with a raised eyebrow.

"Or some power producing gem?" Rad added. The middle-aged farmer shook his head.

"Nah. Stardew Valley never had anything like that. The closest thing to a super strong material would be… _Iridium…._ Oh no," Andenna suddenly realized what the young boy was getting at.

"K.O., what's going on?" Enid demanded the key details for her and Rad, they wanted to help after all. "Please tell us."

"It's that jerk, Leistung…" K.O. elaborated to his friends, "He attacked me before on my first real quest! He's trying to make himself stronger… I think… All I know about him is that he can read your mind super-fast and recreate things from your memories if he gets a grip on your head."

"Leistung? One of those dudes from FEV-R that went missing years ago?" the Level 3 ninja looked over to the newspaper lying on the table as she finished patching up her tiny friend.

"Oh man… that power sounds scary…" Rad felt goosebumps from imagining his worst nightmares being repeatedly brought back to life before his very eyes. Andenna groaned, rubbing the back of his head. None of it sounded like good news. If anything, it meant he really would need to fight.

 _ **"Guess I'm not gonna be able to give you guys the tour of Pelican Town like I was hoping to…"**_


	8. A Not So Warm Welcome

_**Authors Note: Hey there all, I hope you're all enjoy this story! I'm happy to see this story hit 1,500 views! I wanted to ask you all an important question, do you like how I'm handling this story? Mainly using indie games as a plot setting? Or would you rather I deviate AWAY from that? Let me know, this is Fallen Pens, dropping out.**_

* * *

A day had passed since the train had been attacked by the monster trap left onboard by Leistung. The train was pulling into the station of Pelican Town. It began to slow down gradually until the sound of the wheels scraping against the tracks stopped.

" _ **We're finally here now!**_ " K.O. immediately hopped off the train through one of the windows, landing perfectly on the ground. A days' worth of time to recover was seemingly more than enough for the young hero to return to his energetic helpful self.

"K.O., don't push yourself! You might strain your wounds," Enid ordered. She was amazed he could move at all. Most people with that kind of injury would try to take it as easy as her on one of her breaks until they were healed, but K.O. seemed fine with his at least singed closed wounds.

"You gotta quit babying him so much, Enid," Rad sighed. Despite the nasty glare the bodega cashier gave him, he did not back down from what he said.

"Don't worry, Enid, I'll be fine! I've put up with a lot worse," the Level 1 hero reassured. It was just normal for someone so determined to be a hero to get hurt often, as far as he cared. Fighting Boxmore daily led to this.

" _I wish I didn't have to worry at all…_ " the purple haired ninja huffed out a frustrated breath. She used to be the most uncaring person in the whole plaza until K.O. came along. That endearing spirit of his made her start thinking differently than she used to.

"You all really are wound up, huh? Sorry about dragging you into my problems," Andenna apologized. He hoped they weren't all internally fighting over the valuable jewel he had promised them for their aid. "How about I treat you all to some of my cooking afterwards? Consider it something to look forward to," the middle-aged farmer offered. The deal sounded pretty good to them.

"Andenna? I was wondering when you'd finally get back," they heard an older voice chime up. They saw an older man stepping up to the train station just as the train was pulling away. He was wearing overalls and had a grey mustache, with a flat cap covering his balding head. "I see you brought company," the old man chuckled. The three heroes looked perplexed by the elderly man's behavior.

"Oh, guys. This is Lewis. He's the mayor of Pelican Town… I think he's been working that job for over thirty years now," Andenna introduced them to Mayor Lewis with a smile on his face, trying to reassure that he was not some senile old man.

"Thirty years?! _Wow…_ how do you win every election?" Rad was amazed. He swore only a super villain could accomplish something like this by taking out all of their competition.

"No one ever challenges me! I'd like to think that means I'm doing my job well," Mayor Lewis laughed. For some reason that answer made them feel uncertain if he was telling the truth, but the elderly man was friends with everybody in Pelican Town and did his best for them all.

"I'm guessing you're the heroes that Andenna was talking about getting to investigate the mines?" the mayor inquired. The farmer nodded, having talked to the leader of Pelican Town long before going to do it. Of course, though, nobody agreed with the farmer about there being any threat in the mines, and simply brushed him off as being paranoid from spending so long working hard with no rest.

"Yeah, that's us," Enid nodded, not really paying the old man much mind.

"Yep! We're heroes!" K.O. pumped his fist eagerly.

"You betcha," Rad chuckled, flexing his muscles, not even trying to hide the desire to show off to some new faces,

"Ah, it's a shame we have to bother someone else to handle our towns problems… the closest thing we have to heroes are some elderly monster hunters, but their time has passed," Mayor Lewis was doubtful there was any trouble in the mines at all, but he was grateful nonetheless to have it investigated.

"Well, we think we already know what the problem is… I'm just hoping that we're wrong," K.O. replied. He knew he was being confusing, but he did not want to go spilling every little detail about the issue that would needlessly cause a panic throughout the town.

"Well, thank you for helping our town. I'll get out of your way. Come and let me know how everything turns out," Mayor Lewis began to leave. He had only come to the train station to welcome back the town's notorious farmer, and now he could go back to the town hall.

"So which way is it to the mine?" Enid requested, hoping to get everything wrapped up and done with so they could help ease the town's worries.

"A bit north east from here," Andenna answered as he began to lead them away to take them to the mines. He did feel bad to know he could not give them a warmer welcome tour of Pelican Town like he had hoped to, but that was just his bad luck.

* * *

It took them only a short few minutes to get to the entrance of the mines, which was around the lake on the mountain. A lot of the people they passed by gave them warm greetings, despite the trio being complete strangers to Stardew Valley.

"It's like none of them have a single care in the world…" Enid commented. It was rather creepy in a sense. She knew how it was with small towns. Everyone knew each other, and therefore everyone knew each other's personal affairs. It was like an unwarranted contract of trust was signed by them all.

"The planet I was born on was like this… it was so boring I couldn't wait to get off it," Rad exclaimed, not even wanting to remember that uneventful life he once led. He enjoyed being a hero a lot more.

"There's a lot of interesting secrets I've found while living in Pelican Town, but I don't think anyone'd believe me if I tell them about them. Like the little critters that helped repair the community center… especially since I'm not entirely sure myself if they're are aliens or not," Andenna began to ramble to himself. Rad did not know how to reply. K.O. was more lost in his thoughts, worried about what Leistung was doing in those mines. He doubted the man would give a straight answer either.

* * *

The mine entrance was easy enough to find. There was a large tunnel entrance right beside some bright purple rocks. They were right beside the mountain lake. The water shimmered quite brightly with the summer sun beaming off it.

"So, this is the mine?" K.O. quirked, surprised that it could go that many floors deep. It looked rather small, but he knew looks could be deceiving. That was one of the first things he had been taught since he was small.

"Awe man! How are we going to search this whole place? It'd take a week to get through it all!" Rad complained, even if all their strength was combined, it was going to take a long time to make sure all one hundred and twenty floors were clear.

"Rad does have a point… Even if everything in here is as weak as a slime, we only have so much energy," Enid, for once on the rare occasion agreed with her co-worker.

"What's this?" K.O. chimed up while looking at a noticeable rectangular part carved from the wall. There were some buttons beside it as well, and quite a lot of machinery hooked up to the ceiling of it.

"That's the elevator. I was able to repair the shaft by the time I was to the bottom of the dungeon. The elevator exits are between every ten floors," Andenna shared the good news with them. It would come in handy for their quest, "It came in handy for me when I was digging through here a long time ago."

"Wow! That's convenient!" K.O. brightly smiled and hit the button to call for the elevator, but it seemed very slow despite the twenty times he had rapidly pressed the button.

"The iridium's real deep if that info helps," the middle-aged farmer said. If they were going to go based off the belief someone was here for the special ore, it would at least narrow things down.

While the others were talking, Enid was looking over her cellphone, trying to kill the time while she waited for the elevator. She heard it finally come up. Nobody else had noticed during their discussion on how to go about searching the mines.

"About time. I was starting to get worried that it had been sabotaged," Enid pocketed her phone, but by the time she looked back up, the door had opened, and she instantly felt a gloved hand grab her head. " **Mhph-?!** " the purple haired ninja quickly kicked her assailant in the chest, knocking the body back into the elevator. She threw a dozen kunai in a scattered burst. The others had their attention grabbed when they heard a pained scream and a rapidly descending elevator.

"Enid! What happened?!" K.O. ran over to her side. Enid had calmed down now that she had regained her composure.

"Someone was on the elevator! They tried to grab me!" the level 3 hero gasped out as the other two approached the elevator shaft.

"Looks like you cut the elevators cables… This isn't safe to ride anymore," Andenna pointed out. Half of the dozen kunai had unfortunately flown upward and cut the cables in various spots with varying degrees of depth.

"Dang, Enid, it's not like you to lose your cool that easy," Rad commented to his surprise. He did not receive a scary glare from her.

"…I don't know why, but feeling that glove on my face made my heart feel like it stopped… Now I'm just thinking about _'her'_ again," Enid rubbed her head, disappointed with herself. A ninja that couldn't keep their cool was about as useful as a warrior afraid of battle.

"Does your head hurt?" K.O. asked, but his close friend shook her head.

"No, everything feels fine," she said, relieving him. He knew that it had to have been Leistung on that elevator. Assuming he had to have a way to tell when people were entering the mines. But he doubted the villain expected things to be easy when attempting a surprise attack to read their minds.

"Okay… I guess he didn't have enough time to go through your memories," K.O. exhaled a relieved breath, not wanting to imagine half the things in her mind that could be manifested into monsters to fight.

"But now what do we do? The elevator's totaled," Rad brought up his concern. As long as his friends were alright, he could not bring himself to pay it much attention.

"Can't you just levitate us all down there?" K.O. quirked an eyebrow.

"I can, but I'll only be able to take one person at a time," Rad said, slightly irritated. He would have to be a personal elevator. Andenna was making mental notes to fix the cables when this was all over.

"Alright, let's do this then," Enid was readier than ever to do this now. Leistung had gotten her full attention. She was going to make sure he regretted it.

K.O. was angrier than anything but trying his best to control it.

 _ **"I'll get him back for trying to hurt my friends! This is a promise to myself!"**_


	9. Childhood Friend?

K.O. was the first to go down the elevator shaft. He had a telekinetic aura around his body slowly lowering him down. He felt like he was in a slow fall within a bottomless pit more than anything.

 _"Leistung… That power is awesome, but if he ever got ahold of my head…"_ the Level 1 hero felt himself shiver at the thought of what would happen if Leistung read his memories. There was a reason the young boy had to suppress his anger to the best of his ability. He became a different person when his rage hit its peak.

"Whoa!" K.O. suddenly landed on top of something, the telekinetic aura vanishing from around his body. He looked down to see the top of the elevator that he was now standing on.

"Guess that's a good enough sign for where he stopped…" the preteen spoke to himself. He was perhaps one hundred floors deep into the dungeon. His friends would take a while to catch up. Unfortunately for him, upon inspection, the elevator's cable had snapped entirely. It had gotten stuck when it had tilted and got wedged within the shaft.

"Guess this is my stop," K.O. could see the opening for this floor that the elevator was meant to stop in front of. Luckily the angle was just enough to let his tiny body slip through with ease. He landed on the ground, quickly looking around.

 _"Wow… Enid really did a number on him,"_ the preteen hero thought as his eyes glazed over to the inside of the elevator. The many kunai were still pinned inside of it. There were two laying on the ground covered in blood. They had hit their target. However, the blood trail stopped after a few inches.

K.O. was unable to wait for everyone else. If Leistung was wounded, it meant there was a perfect opportunity to corner him like a hapless mouse. The young boy began to head off into the mine to begin his search, even if it meant going even deeper down this dungeon.

* * *

"You sure that's a safe idea?" Rad questioned as he levitated down into the elevator shaft. Enid was beside him, using climbing gloves and spiked boots to cling onto the side of the wall and moving downward at a slow pace. Andenna had insisted that they should go ahead without him. He would catch up by going the longer route he had said.

"It's really easy without bats trying to maul you," Enid responded with a light joke. Her co-worker did not really laugh much. Oddly, he seemed lost in his mind to a slight degree. He rarely did any deep thinking so it tended to be a bad sign.

"When you said you were… remembering her… were you talking about Elodie?" Rad asked. Just hearing the name alone made his co-worker lose all her zealous spirit and made her instantly bitter. Not a word of reply escaped her lips. The alien stock boy let out an exasperated sigh. That was a good enough answer for him.

The two both suddenly heard a loud crash and a period of scraping. After a short moment of silence, they heard a crash that shook the elevator shaft.

" **Wh-whoa whoa!** " Enid felt her grips come loose from the wall. She tried to hold on with just her one hand, but the rocks on the wall that her feet were clung to, began to fall out as well.

" _ **Enid!**_ " Rad quickly reached out and grabbed her hand before she could fall, catching her by the wrist. He had to give it a lot of effort to not instantly lose control of his telekinesis. He gritted his teeth as they began to slow their descent.

"Hey, are you alright?" the Level 2 alien asked her as the cave calmed down. After all of that, it seemed like a clear enough sign that the elevator had given way and cratered down to the bottom.

"Just… trying to catch my breath… thanks for the save," Enid gave a warm smile, thankful for his quick actions. She was annoyed though by knowing she had lost that climbing equipment. "Are you sure you can do this? I thought you said you had to lower us one at a time," the purple haired teen asked Rad, more worried about him straining himself than anything.

"I'll be fine. Just gotta focus more than I usually do," the Level 2 hero assured with a smile, his muscles bulging a little from the effort it was taking. Even if he was putting up a brave front, his co-worker seemed dull to pick it up. She was merely lost in her own thoughts. The teenage alien just hoped they would reach the right floor soon.

* * *

K.O. wandered blindly through the dungeon, kicking aside tiny rocks in hopes to reveal the hidden ladder to the next level below. Andenna had gotten this deep down this way. Though the dungeon always seemed like it was changing the positions of the ladders, so that it made it harder for any intruder to get deep inside.

 _"Unless Leistung was somehow reading memories of the townspeople, then he hasn't a thing to help protect himself with…"_ K.O. thought to himself. It was the only logical explanation he could find behind why the villain was on that elevator to surprise them in the first place.

"Hm?" he quirked an eyebrow when he heard something wet plopping against the ground. After a few seconds, he could see a tiny pink slime hopping his way, as if trying to intimidate him.

"Aww! A slime!" K.O. exclaimed. The slime looked disappointed for failing at making him quiver in fear. Its beady black eyes made it look like a monster tamer's first pet. K.O felt a sting when the pink slime bounced onto him and fell backwards, barely doing a point of damage to him.

"Hahahah! Oh well, you tried your best," K.O. delivered one strong kick, obliterating the slime, chunks splattering on the floor and wall. He would feel bad, but he knew slimes regenerated en masse from an unknown source. Thereby there was no need for him to feel guilty for his actions.

"A ladder…?" K.O. chirped at a ladder appearing underneath where the slime had been defeated. He shrugged, not giving it a second thought. He began his descent deeper into the mine. There was no waiting for anybody to catch up. He was focused on capturing Leistung or stopping whatever his plan was here.

* * *

K.O. had climbed four floors down already in the span of thirty minutes. However, he had found nothing but some shadowy monsters and a lot more slimes to beat up, and none of them posed significant threat to him. He was surprised by such results. He always considered himself to be the weakest hero around. These creatures were perhaps a fraction of his strength.

"Still nothing? _Man…_ he's really fast for having stab wounds," the brush haired boy commented, not able to deny his own issues with the impalement he suffered on the train. They still hurt, but he was doing his best to ignore the pain and press onward. He continued his wander through the cave with seldom orientation, punching rocks to break them to pieces in hopes of finding the ladder deeper down.

"Huh?" K.O. quirked an eyebrow when he heard something piercing the air. He quickly stepped backwards, trying to dodge whatever was coming. A bright pink arrow flew past him, pinning itself in the wall. The young boy held his forearm in pain. A large gash was now on his arm. When he looked to the arrow, it was fizzling away like it had been made of magic.

" _That arrow…_ No way…!" K.O. recognized it all too well. He turned around. There stood a shadowy girl in a puffy red dress with a white trim. Her blonde hair and small reddish pink hat was prominent, and a pink feather was stuck in the back of it.

"Elodie!" the young hero called her name. The Level 4 idol, all too familiar to him, was a point academy student and at one point had been close friends with Enid when they were young, until a supposed betrayal transpired.

"This place is too dangerous for such a low-level kid like yourself," the Elodie clone giggled. K.O. was more in shock that Leistung had been able to create a copy at all when he barely had the chance to read Enid's memories. It made him realize just how often the purple haired ninja thought of her former childhood friend.

"Tell me where Leistung is!" he pointed a finger toward the magic bow wielder.

"He went back to mining after I patched him up… he's really not happy about that little wound your friend gave him," Elodie's posh voice swiftly became hostile, striking minor fear into the young boy.

"Fine! I'll just beat the answer out of you! Power fist!" the Level 1 hero threw a large blue aura knuckle that flew down the cave and towards the doppelganger.

"Oh, how cute," Elodie giggled. She pulled back the string of her bow. Three bright pink arrows appeared on it. She let go of the string, and the bow fired all three arrows. They collided with his power fist in the center. Each arrow dug deeper, but the final pin shattered the aura fist altogether.

" **Wha-?!** " K.O. had to throw himself to the side as the three arrows impaled the wall behind him, barely missing him. He panted, terrified. The difference of sheer power between them both was quite evident now. _"I… I don't stand a chance…"_ the fear struck him fully. Levels did not mean everything, but they were meant to determine the battler's strength for good reason. Elodie could dominate him at any second. The preteen boy noticed her fire another couple arrows. He rolled out of the way, he took the next second to get back up and began running.

"A game of cat and mouse? Heheh… Alright," Elodie giggled, beginning to casually walk, following behind at a calm pace. K.O. could not escape now. The exit was far behind the Level 4 doppelganger. The only way he could go was downward, deeper into the mine.

* * *

The chase went on in every corner of the floor. Minutes became an eternity for the Level 1 hero. K.O. kept running and hoping to find the ladder to the next floor of the dungeon at his top speed. Yet Elodie somehow kept up with him while barely breaking a sweat.

 _"Oh no no no…"_ K.O. gulped being unfortunately caught in a corner without any form of escape that was when an arrow suddenly hit his vest piercing it and pinning him to the wall much to his dismay the young boy tried to pull the arrow from the wall, but he couldn't. And since it was made of magic, it was impossible for him to break off.

"Looks like I win, little boy," Elodie tutted, her tone calm, but creepy. She stepped up to him. The panicked K.O. tried to swing a foot at her when she got close enough to kick her, but she blocked it with her own leg, brushing it aside like it was nothing. "…And if I remember right, you got hurt on that train, didn't you?"

"Wh-what?" K.O. gulped, fearful. Leistung knew about his wounds. He made those Electropions after all. It seemed like all the creations he made were all connected telepathically.

"Yeah, if I'm right you have a few holes. And one is right… here!" Elodie threw one strong swing with her leg. She hit him in his lower back, right where he had been stabbed. The young boy screamed at the insult to injury, her pointy tipped shoes stabbing him there like a knife. "And here!" she kicked him in the back of his left leg, extracting another scream from him that echoed from the cave. She stomped on his injury, grinding her shoe against it and twisting it.

K.O. bit his lip, refusing to beg for mercy. There was only so low he was willing to go as a hero. He just hoped that he would not fall unconscious from the pain soon enough.

" **Get off him!** "

Elodie was hit by a flaming boot to the back of her head that smashed her aside, as well as making her hat fall to the ground. K.O. saw Rad and Enid rushing over to him.

"Whoa…" Rad was surprised at the figure they confronted. Elodie's presence made Enid feel her heart stop for a moment. Her childhood friend's appearance sent ripples throughout her body.

"You get K.O. away from here. I'll deal with her," Rad stepped up bravely, but was unable to deny the fear for the person twice his level, even if it might be a clone.

"No, Rad…" Enid breathed, "I'll do it."

"What?" Rad was surprised, "But Enid, you've beaten her once before already."

Enid turned to her coworker with a smile. To even set her eyes on Elodie may hurt her, but she wished it to be done with. "Thanks, Rad, but we both know she'd tear your antenna off… Don't worry about me," Enid reassured while she motioned him to get K.O. Rad gave a begrudged nod, before he went to pick up their little friend.

"Well, hello there, Enid," Elodie's clone stood back up, not caring much for her fallen hat. There was nothing but silence between them. After a moment, Rad got the arrow removed and was able to pick K.O. up before he began to head away from the impending battle.

"You might've won the last time, but I know you can't beat me again… I've memorized your moves ever since we were little! Why do you think I was able to go to point while you waste your life working at a convenience store?" Elodie continued as the two began walking in circles, glaring each other down.

"I'll win again, Elodie, or whatever you are… I won't hold back this time either," Enid's right leg caught ablaze, burning stronger than ever. The Level 4 Point student made her magical bow appear once more in her left hand.

"Aww… how sweet, Enid. I'm glad you're able to be so strong and brave," Elodie giggled. She changed her age to match back to when they first met as young teenagers, before turning back to normal, a move just to play with her enemy's mind even more than she already was doing. Elodie had stabbed her in the back for a tournament that neither had known was coming up, where the winner would be able to enter point academy. K.O. told Enid that it was impossible for her to know about the tournament, as they learned about it at the same time. It made Enid question her perspective on it quite a lot, so much so that she wondered if they really were still friends.

"You were made from my memories, huh? He sure did a crap job at cloning… I've learned a lot since we last met, and thanks to K.O., I gained a new look at how things went down between us," Enid exclaimed, her pupils glimmering with determination as she cracked her knuckles.

" _ **Let's go."**_


	10. Pow Card Secret?

Every monster in that level of the dungeon had vanished once Enid and Elodie's clone had started fighting. They had essentially torn the entire area to pieces.

"Running, huh? That's all you were ever good at! Just like a cowardly rabbit!" Elodie fired another pair of arrows as she pursued after the ninja down another tunnel. Enid quickly spun on her feet, delivering a roundhouse kick to the arrows to knock them aside. She then threw a flaming fireball from her leg back toward the shadow doppelganger.

Elodie blocked the attack with her forearms, taking the burn like it had been nothing more than a toasted sandwich being thrown at her. She pulled back the string on her bow. Three bright pink arrows quickly appeared. She let go of the string, watching the arrows fly right for her childhood friend.

" _ **Hrk-!**_ " All the arrows landed their mark, hitting the side of the Level 3 ninja from shin to shoulder. However, in half a second, she vanished in a puff of smoke leaving nothing behind but a wooden log that had the arrows embedded in them.

"Where'd you go now, you little coward?!" Elodie called out, her patience beginning to grow very thin. Before she knew it, Enid had appeared behind her, falling from the ceiling with her right leg raised high blazing brightly, she slammed her leg downward with a burning hammer kick hitting Elodie in the back of her head.

The Level 4 hero yelped as she fumbled. Her hat and part of her hair was on fire from the attack. She had to quickly throw her hat aside and pat out the flames.

"My hair…!" Elodie growled, looking at the ninja. Enid stood, silent, waiting for her next move, yet the flames on both of her boots were blazing out of control, as if they were fueled by her high-running emotions. "Take this!" the point academy student clone jumped high into the air, beginning to spin around before starting to rain down a hail of arrows. Enid did her best to dodge, counter or knock aside the arrows, but they eventually started to overwhelm her.

 _"Crud…! She's not giving me a chance to even breathe!"_ the purple haired girl growled as an arrow hit her in the shoulder. She took it out right afterwards and tried to continue dodging the rest, not caring for the pain. There was no point holding back now. There seemed to be no way to tire out the clone.

" **Fine!** If you want to be like that!" the Level 3 ninja began running toward one of the walls in this open part of the cavern, with a trail of arrows following behind her. "Talk to the foot!" Enid jumped onto the wall and bounced off it, right toward her enemy. Square in the head, she delivered a flaming kick to her, sending her falling back to the ground.

"Ow! M-my face…!" the clone was upset to feel the scorch boot imprint on her cheek. However, she noticed something wrapped around her left wrist. It was a rope with a heavy weight on the end, with a kunai deeply impaled into the nearby wall, high up near the ceiling to stop her from moving. "What is this?!" the doppelganger struggled but was unable to break free from the rope with just strength. She was about to try and cut it off with an arrow.

"Too slow," Enid's voice called as another weighted rope attached to Elodie's other wrist before she could grab her bow, with a kunai flying past it and embedded the second rope tightly. She could not move. Elodie was forced onto her knees by another pair of weighted ropes wrapping around her ankles. Enid kept it up, throwing one rope after another, until Elodie was pinned down by ten bindings.

"Argh! You pathetic, no good…!" Elodie cursed, trying to get out of them with all her might but failing.

"I promise… The next time I meet the real you, I'll talk with you… a real talk," the Level 3 cashier swore, she vanished in a puff of smoke. In a few seconds, there were ten exact clones of Enid all standing at the end of one of the ropes each, having appeared from thin air.

"You lose again…" the ninja clones all lit their legs on fire before jumping up and beginning to slide down the ropes toward the clone, leaving a blazing trail behind them on the ropes. Elodie had a tear run down her cheek as they all collided at once into her. A large explosion of flames followed from the combined power of the ninja and her clone technique, she had spent a lot of time perfecting it recently for good cause.

" _ **Hup!**_ " Enid landed nearby at the exit of the large part of this floor in the dungeon. She stared at the flames for a short time, not able to bring herself to move. The bright embers reflected in her eyes.

"Enid!" the bodega cashier heard, looking over her shoulder to see Rad rushing to her. He had already gotten K.O. to a safe area and came right back.

"Hey Rad," Enid greeted her co-worker, barely twisting her head to see him.

"Where's Elodie? Did she run away?" the alien stock boy looked around, thinking maybe the fire was made as a cover to escape from the rough fight.

"No, Rad… there's only one Elodie left now," Enid answered, her gaze fixed on the flames. She huffed, turned away and began to walk away, wanting to check on K.O.

"Are you sure you can keep going? I know that had to be rough on ya…" Rad commented. Normally he would not even try to show emotion and would keep boasting about how tough he was, but even he knew how deep it must hurt to see a childhood friend like that in a battle so tough in all kinds of ways.

"Rad, I'll be fine… Memories hurt, but there's a reason they're around, right?" Enid mused, "Can't keep the good without keeping the bad… I'm hoping one day, I can turn some of my bad ones good."

" _Uh…?_ " her co-worker did not know if he should take that as a reassurance. He followed along. Enid would tell him if something was wrong, but she was grateful for his worry.

* * *

"You sure you can walk?" Enid asked K.O. as they continued deeper into the dungeon's many floors. They were getting close to catching up to Leistung now, if he had not escaped.

"I'm fine, Enid! Elodie just fought dirty! We just need to stop Leistung before he recovers," K.O. responded. He refused to hold them back just because of his own personal injuries. He was happy to know that the fight with that doppelganger went alright.

"Wait, do you hear that?" Rad quietly interrupted the two before they could argue further about the youngest hero needing to rest. After a moment of silence, they were hearing far off voices coming from deeper in this Level of the dungeon. It took them a short time to get close enough to make out the words.

"I brought him here just like you demanded! What stunt do you think you're trying to pull?!" Andenna's angry voice rung out. Enid Rad and K.O. hid behind several sets of rocks. The saw the farmer talking with the suit clad man himself.

"The plan was to just bring the one kid. Not all of Lakewood plaza!" Leistung countered, "I don't like people trying to mess up a deal… Did you think if you brought a few extra heroes that you'd be able to do as you pleased without consequence?"

" _He wanted to bring me here…?_ " K.O. was hurt. Andenna was a part of whatever Leistung was doing here. A trap seemingly been placed but had then gone wrong at every step.

"I did everything you told me to do and you said you wouldn't hurt my family! That was the deal!" the middle aged farmer looked ready to attack him, despite his dislike of violence. Though the trio of heroes had no clue how he beat them down here to arrive so much quicker.

" **Hey!** " K.O. gained their full attention. Leistung let out a frustrated sigh and shoved Andenna to the side.

"I'm impressed by your cohorts, kid. I was thinking they stood no chance against that copy I made… I suppose Level 4 is weak in three-on-one," Leistung shook his head, upset. His plan had been dismantled so easily without even too much effort.

"Andenna, you were trying to bait K.O. here?" Rad questioned, disbelieving it all. The man seemed so humble too.

"I-I didn't have a choice! I'm sorry…" Andenna apologized profusely, but it seemed a fight was going to happen no matter what.

As Enid and Rad charged for Leistung, the suited man pulled out a small round metallic ball from his pocket that had a button a top of it.

"I got what I needed from here… wish I could've gotten more Iridium, but I'm not as foolishly greedy as most evil idiots," Leistung hit the button and threw it down. The ball opened up small pores, which spewed out clouds of various colored smoke that enveloped the whole area in seconds.

"Where'd he go!?" Enid coughed. She could not see even her own hands in this rainbow of smoke.

"Get back here, you coward!" Rad called out. He would begin blasting wildly if he could see straight, but he did not want to risk hurting his friends.

K.O. was trying to look around, but he suddenly heard Leistung's voice. "Y'know, kid… You sure are impressive with how resilient you are. It reminds me of my dad when I was younger… I'm going to let you in on a little secret for your hard work," the mind reader laughed. The Level 1 hero felt his whole body freeze up when he felt something on the back of his head. He quickly turned around, but he saw nobody there. Leistung was enjoying teasing him, his obvious fear of having his mind read was a practical toy.

"I don't want anything you have to offer!" K.O. swung wide into the smoke, but hit nothing.

"Don't worry. It's an important thing that you might be interested in knowing… y'see, it's a secret, but the POW cards actually have three levels they track. One is Hero Level. Another is Villain Level. And last but not least… is the Hazard level."

 _"Hazard level…?"_ K.O. thought, not sure why the POW card company would need that or why they would keep it secret from the public. When the smoke began to clear around him, he looked down and noticed a POW card on the ground.

"Leistung's POW card?" K.O. picked it up. An eyebrow was raised when his eyes glazed over to the bottom right. The color of his Level numbers were not red or blue. They were bright yellow with black stripes. Leistung was Level 6, yet there was no indication that he was evil in the POW card company's eyes. When he tapped on the yellow and black numbers, they flipped to red to show his villain Level, which was only Level 2. " _Oh…?_ "

"K.O.?! Are you alright?!" Enid called out. The preteen boy made a snap second decision to keep the information he had been told secret, if Leistung was trying to mess with them then he was not going to allow it. It was then that he heard rocks falling right after from the ceiling above him, but he had no time to react.

" _ **Watch out!**_ "

K.O. closed his eyes, expecting to feel the weight of being crushed any second from the boulder trap, but he felt nothing. It took a moment before he willingly opened his eyes as the smoke cleared.

"Are you alright…?" Andenna asked, gritting his teeth. He had caught the boulder on his back, having to put in a lot of effort for his legs to not give out.

"Rad! Help over here!" K.O. called. Rad quickly fired a beam at the large rock, levitating it off to quickly throw it aside.

"Where'd Leistung go?" Enid ran over, looking around desperately for the monster maker.

"He… got away. I'm sorry. All he left was his POW card," K.O. apologized, feeling terrible for letting the one gloved man escape like that. Andenna held his head, his back hurting a lot.

"Aw, man! We went through all that for nothing…" Rad wanted to yell his frustrations out, but now was not the time. "Will you be fine, Andenna?" He doubted his box lifting record to be half the weight of that boulder.

"I feel like this every day, it's just a part of the farmer life," the middle aged farmer insisted. He pledged guilt for the way he hurt them, but with Leistung leaving them here and presumably fleeing Stardew Valley, it meant Andenna's family was under no further threat.

"We'll help you out of here, but after that, we're leaving," Enid bluntly put it. This whole charade just hurt K.O., and that in turn made her very upset, she could care less about a few puncture wounds on her body.

"Heh… guess I had this coming…" Andenna took a moment to pull out the all too familiar prismatic shard from his pocket that he had promised as a reward. He handed it over to K.O.

"Is there a doctor in this town?" Enid asked. They did have to deal with their injuries as soon as possible, the last thing she wanted was to get an infection.

"Yeah," Andenna nodded, "there's a clinic next door to the store my wife used to live in."

"Okay, Rad, you help Andenna walk and I'll carry K.O.," Enid ordered.

"Uhh… right, yeah," Rad wanted to argue, but the two were in too much pain and exhaustion to even think about going further, he had no real choice on the matter if they wanted to make progress.

 _"Hazard level…?"_ K.O. pondered about what Leistung said, holding his POW card in one hand and the bright rainbow gem in the other,

 _"Maybe Dendy will know what that is…"_


	11. Temporary Promotion

It had been four days since the three young heroes had returned from Stardew Valley. Nobody was exactly happy about that failed journey turned trap. Since they had gotten back, a few things had changed in the mood of the bodega's atmosphere. Thankfully K.O. did not get caught by his mother, she remained as oblivious as ever, or at least that is what she wanted him to think.

" **Enid!** " Mr. Gar's voice shook most of the store shelves. Rad and K.O. were desperately trying to make sure nothing explosive on the shelves went off again. Otherwise they would destroy more blasting equipment than they actually sold. They could tell that their boss sounded mad, but it seemed to be out of nowhere. Enid was unsure whether to come out from behind the counter, mentally debating which would make their boss less mad, standing still in front of him or behind the counter.

"Yes, Mr. Gar?" the Level 3 ninja decided she would stay stationary behind the front counter, standing straight like a disciplined soldier in front of a general.

"We've gotten seven complaints from customers today, and they are all related to you!" The Level 11 hero held up a bin full of shredded paper. The box for filing _'complaints'_ had a paper shredder hidden inside of it. Most complaints that customers filed were not worth the bodega workers time to look at them even, any real issues they noticed far before a complaint needed to be filed.

"Isn't that a low amount?" Enid was more curious about how he was able to deduce how those complaints were about her at all. The most she saw on the shredded paper was mentions of her hair color and her position in the workplace. Mr. Gar threw the small bin aside, K.O. caught it before any of the garbage within it could fall out.

"I'd say yes… But we've only been open for an hour and a half!" Mr. Gar shouted loud enough to undo her hair from its usual done up style. Rad and K.O. only could watch from behind some of the aisle shelves.

" _That many complaints this early into the day already…?_ " K.O. never had seen Enid cause so much trouble for customers like that. He had seen her kick a few particularly irritating customers with her flaming boot, but that was nothing unusual. It made the young boy feel bad. After all, he had led them into that trap that took them a long time to get to and essentially made the weekend a waste for her, the prismatic shard they had been given for a reward K.O. had taken home for safe keeping when his friends said that they did not want it.

"I can't have you scaring off all the customers… so go home for the day and try to handle whatever's bugging you," Mr. Gar ordered Enid, his harsh tone dying down into a more understanding voice. He had been letting her work at the bodega for a long time now. He knew she only got this bad when she was upset. This time around though, Enid seemed unaware of what was even causing her current problems. "K.O.!" the mustached muscular hero called out for the youngest employee.

K.O immediately darted in front of the counter to stand before their boss. "Yes sir, Mr. Gar, sir!"

"This isn't the army K.O., calm down… I'm going to give you a chance to help customers, more so than usual," Mr. Gar began while Enid was fixing her hair back up, she raised an eyebrow upon hearing what he said

" **Really?!** " K.O. gasped, his eyes glimmering with excitement.

"You're to stand down from your cleaning duties and take over the cash register. Is that clear?"

"Yes! I'll do better than my best, Mr. Gar!" K.O. jumped proudly onto the front counter in front of his Level 3 friend. However, he felt his heart sink when he realized what this meant. " _Wait…_ you aren't thinking about having me replace Enid… are you?" he may not be completely recovered from his injuries, but he hoped the pain that still was quite prominent was not making him misunderstand the situation.

" _K.O…_ " Enid was cut off by their boss.

"Only for today. Think of it as a temporary promotion. You get two breaks not counting lunch now as well," Mr. Gar answered. The Level 3 ninja needed quite a few breaks throughout the day, or else her bad side would make itself prominent and she would start stealing souls again.

"Don't worry about it, K.O… Hope you enjoy the job," Enid told her youngest friend while rubbing his head, slightly messing up his hair, she was just hoping that their clientele didn't drive him to insanity in the same way busy days tended to do for her.

"I'll do it for you, Enid," K.O. gave a smile and a nod. Enid smiled and nodded back before she left to head on home, instead of spending any more time at Lakewood Plaza Turbo for today.

" _Wow…_ she should've been a lot more eager to get a day off," Rad was rather surprised. It meant Mr. Gar was right about sending their friend home to recover from her stress instead of taking it out on customers.

"Don't let me down, K.O.," Mr. Gar told the temporary cashier. K.O. gave a thumbs up before jumping behind the counter. But then he realized he was too short. The Level 1 hero had to stand on the chair that Enid normally leaned back in to be seen above the counter, let alone to reach the register.

"Hey, hey. Congrats, little buddy. You're up at the front, almost like you're the face of the store now," Rad congratulated him. The kid had a bright smile. He didn't think about that, but he guessed he was going to be the first person most customers would see, as well as anyone else entering. The Level 1 boy guessed that might be why Enid was in this position.

"I feel like it's a little unfair for me to take over. It might be my fault she's mad…" K.O. rubbed his head. He only agreed to this so he could give give Enid a much-needed break. The alien stock boy understood his friend's concern, having already guessed the young boy would blame himself for this.

"Don't worry. Enid's probably still getting over having to fight that Elodie clone… or blaming herself for you getting hurt," Rad reassured. He expected Enid to blame herself for this. She really did care for K.O., the alien had made fun of it time and time again after all.

"It's not her fault I'm weak… I really need to find a way to make her feel better," the red headband wearing boy tapped his chin, trying to think of something that Enid would love so much that it would break her out of her foul mood.

"Before you say something about trying to get Elodie to visit her, that's not gonna happen. She's a quarter across the world in Scuttle Town," Rad shot down the idea before it even came up in his young friend's head.

"Huh? How do you know that?" K.O. chirped. The Level 2 alien showed his cellphone.

"I follow her Facesmack page. She goes there every couple of months for a vacation… she's nowhere near our turf. Goin' to Stardew Valley was one thing, but travelling that far is out of the question," Rad put his phone back in his pocket. K.O. did not respond, feeling bad about that idea being destroyed before he even could suggest it. Though thinking of a present for Enid was providing a nice distraction to his mind about what Leistung had told him when they last encountered each other.

" _ **Oh!**_ " K.O. noticed a person enter the store, "A customer's coming!"

"Good luck, little buddy. I gotta go clean up the stuff that fell from Mr. Gar's shouting," Rad bid his young friend before he went to do his task.

* * *

K.O. did his best throughout the day to work the cash register. Though at first he had no idea how to operate the cash register or open it. Thankfully there was a little piece of paper taped on part of the counter, giving a small list of instructions on how to use it. He was then able to do the job decently, guessing that minor instruction list had been there since Enid first started working here, now things were going smoothly.

Or at least at first. With each passing hour, things became a lot more taxing with customers beginning to come and go constantly. Half of them were becoming impatient as well.

 _ **"Man! Why does everyone want potions today?"**_ K.O. asked himself. He did not enjoy the taste of healing potions himself, but since they kept the health potions behind the counter, he had to keep going to the back to restock after every third customer. It seemed like everyone was buying them by the dozen today.

"Hey! I've been in front of you for barely two seconds. Where's the potions?" one impatient customer demanded. The level 1 hero exhaled tiredly, guessing that this man was the type to honk his horn the second a stoplight turns green. K.O. had watched his mom fight those types of people a lot.

"S-sorry sir. Here, they're six technos each. We have a buy three get one free special going on today, too," K.O. pulled out the tray of potions, resting it on the counter for the man to take as many as he wanted.

"Don't you mean, buy two, get one free?" the man raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. Gar says this gives extra incentive to spend more money," K.O. immediately recited the exact words his boss gave him when he asked the same question.

"Hey, hurry up, bub! You're taking forever!"

"Oh, shut your trap, you broad! You can wait there for a few minutes!"

"Hey, you talkin' bad about my girl?!"

" _Oh, geez…_ " K.O. gulped nervously. What would Enid do in this situation, he asked himself. Sadly. All solutions that came to mind involved violence, which was not the answer to the current problem. "Everyone, calm down! There's plenty of potions to get!" he tried to calm them all down. He was worried though. Health potions if consumed at a high enough rate could induce a similar effect like one would get from alcohol consumption, just without the dangerous symptoms. Because of this, Mr. Gar set a limit for all customers to be unable to buy more than twenty potions a day.

"Quiet, shorty! This is between adults!" the man in front of him just shoved him back.

"Whoa, whoa!" K.O. fell behind the counter, landing with a loud thud with teh sound of something crunching beneath his body. It broke the chair he had been standing on into small pieces. " _Oh no…!_ That was Enid's chair!" the brush haired boy gulped at the splintered remains of the once comfortable seat. He gritted his teeth upon hearing the customers fighting, he felt a flame of rage beginning to flow through his blood. K.O.s hands began sparking with purple electricity. His wristbands turned from red to purple with spikes coming out of them. He hopped onto the counter.

"What, brat?! I told you to leave this to the-…" the man froze when he saw the angry young boy standing on the counter, with sharp teeth now being prominent. K.O. looked ready to explode, "Adults?"

"What is a customer if they attack a _ **HERO**_ supply store?" K.O. asked as his eye twitched, his anger clearly bursting to fight them all right now.

"A… A villain?" another customer stammered, fearfully.

"That's right! Power fist!" K.O. jumped up, his knuckle glowing bright purple. He fired the giant aura fist downward which crashed into the floor, causing it to fling up the other half of the floor, launching the customers up into the air and blasting them through the ceiling. K.O. began maniacally laughing as the screams of the once fighting customers began to fade away fast.

"K.O.?" a familiar voice made him snap out of his anger induced trance. Everything about him returned to normal.

"Dendy! It's great to see you," K.O. hopped off the counter and brightly greeted one of his best friends, Dendy, a genius kappa girl in the same grade and hero level as him. Her high-tech backpack was on her back like always, she rarely was seen without it.

"My, you seem far more eager to have my acquaintanceship than usual… did Boxmore attack?" Dendy queried, glancing up to the ceiling with her glasses-covered eyes. Usually holes in the bodega were nothing unusual, but these looked a lot more explosive in nature.

"No, they've already done their morning attack. Enid dealt with them before the box even opened," K.O. responded eagerly, having no clue where those customers went. He tended to lose his memory when his anger got the best of him, just another reason why he hated giving into his anger.

"I suppose that significantly startled them into backing off for the rest of the day," Dendy adjusted her glasses, glad to know they had some peace here for the time being, though she was curious why Enid was not around.

"But back to the reason I'm here… you said you had some news related to POW cards that you wished to discuss with me?" Dendy asked.

"Yeah. It's new news, I guess… Come on, let's talk outside," K.O. wanted this conversation to be more private, in case it did turn out true that Leistung had been messing with him. Dendy nodded beginning to head out of the convenience store ahead of him. "Mr. Gar! I'm going on my break!" he called out to him.

"Alright! There doesn't seem to be any customers here right now anyway," Mr. Gar responded while he brought over a ladder and some materials to begin repairing the newest hole in the roof, having returned from his office far too late to know what happened to the clientele.

* * *

"Do you know why people are so desperately buying health potions lately?" K.O. asked Dendy while they left Gar's bodega and began to walk to another part of the plaza.

"That's most likely due to a rumor of a new poisonous monster roaming free apparently just touching its skin is enough to hospitalize you… Health potions help with producing medical kits faster than from scratch," the spectacled kappa explained while they got to a more open part of the plaza people considered a small park.

"A poison monster? Weird… Usually they just spit poison or have poison body parts, but I've never heard about a monster fully made of poison," K.O. was curious to see what this supposed monster looked like, but his close friend shook her head, not wanting him to get any ideas about hunting a most likely nonexistent monster.

"These rumors are unfounded… but the saying, I believe, is hope for the best, but prepare for Armageddon."

"Haha! I think you mean hope for the best prepare for the worst Dendy," K.O. smiled. She was not the best at sayings, but it did not stop her from trying. She seemed slightly embarrassed to be corrected, but tried to not let it show through her usual straight faced demeanor.

"However, I am grateful that you'd tell me first about the POW card news… even if I have hacked into their network to know every new cards' release," Dendy expressed her gratitude, though was as aware as anyone else about K.O.'s rather big issue when prioritizing helping others over his own wellbeing.

"Well the thing is, I wanted to ask if you knew about this here…" K.O. rummaged around in his pocket before pulling out the binder where he kept all the POW cards he collected. He pulled out Leistung's card after a short moment of searching for it.

 _ **"Do you know what a hazard level stat might be?"**_


End file.
